


The Superstition Spectrum

by BookBird1497



Series: Spooky Science [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-03 08:54:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 110,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8705839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookBird1497/pseuds/BookBird1497
Summary: Ghosts and humans live separate lives-- or afterlives, if you'd prefer. This is a fundamental fact of the life and death cycle, and nothing can change that...Unless your name is Camirelle Lidiare Dowell, the resident half-ghost girl-turned-super heroine. Only a few months after Crom's nearly successful feast featuring the unsuspecting souls of Bailey Lake, society had begun to grow used to the frequent ghost attacks launched on their quiet, thriving metropolis. As for Camry, her daily struggles lie within balancing her life and afterlife, both of which are filled to the brim with obligations that carry their own heavy consequences.Even so, just as life is starting to make sense again, a new type of challenger approaches with an intent far worse than the ghosts seeking to simply control the human world and cause a little mayhem. What is this new opponent, and what could he possibly want with Relle Phantom? 
Danny Phantom fic filled entirely with OCs (does that even make it a fanfic, technically?). Ships are OCxOC; rated PG-13 for mild swearing, the supernatural, and violence. Please leave lots of comments down below and kudos so I know this is worth continuing, okay? I hope you enjoy!





	1. Prologue

A smartly-dressed middle-aged man sat at his desk, a mug bearing a television channel's logo emblazoned on its side in hand and an award-winning grin on his face. However, this was no mere office space-- enormous cameras were trained on him and the stage upon which he sat. The overhead lights were hot, but not unbearably so, and after so many years of hosting talk shows such as this he was certainly used to their uncomfortable temperature.

"Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen," he said enthusiastically. "Your patience is about to be rewarded, as we've just received word that our star guest of the night has arrived from her skirmish downtown. You all know who I'm talking about: Relle Phantom!"

The captive audience rose up with cheering, and it took a few seconds for the crowd to settle down. The host, commonly known simply as Ray, held out a gesture for the room to quieten. "Yeah, I'm just as excited as you are! Our first undead guest on this show. Just think! Maybe we'll have the real George Washington or Ray Charles in here one day-- although maybe that's a _little_ too much Ray in one room." The most faithful people in the audience laughed at the inside joke they only understood through continued viewership of the show. Ray himself had to take a second to collect himself after that but was back on track, as professional as ever.

"But let's stop waiting around and get right down to it. Relle Phantom, everyone!"

A sweeping motion of his arm toward stage right encouraged a spotlight to follow along, where it found a teenaged girl with blue hair and a few singe marks on her costume standing stiffly. Her first couple of steps into plain view were wooden and nervous, but she found her rhythm just before shaking Ray's offered hand. Before she knew it, her butt was planted into the end cushion of a couch and the crowd was beginning to die down. Her flushed complexion, on the other hand, was definitely not dying down any time soon.

"Welcome, Relle, welcome," Ray began kindly, and Relle Phantom cleared her throat before answering.

"Th-Thanks for having me," she said.

"You nervous?" he guessed knowingly.

"Like you wouldn't _believe_ ," Relle answered, her tone carrying a hint of a groan. "I've never been on this side of the camera before." Not true-- her mother had brought her into an episode or two of her cooking show every so often before this particular evening.

"Nah, there's no need to be nervous," Ray assured her. The audience was palpably silent in anticipation for the conversation going on in front of them. "And I think I'm about ready to believe anything after the last few months Bailey Lake's seen! Tell me: what's it like being the hero of such a big city?"

"U-Uh, well," Relle stuttered as she mulled the question over. "It's... not easy. And definitely not something I ever planned to be, honestly. Not that I would go so far as to call myself a 'hero,' per se..."

"Why wouldn't you?" Ray asked somewhat rhetorically. "You've been protecting us from all those ghosts that come out of nowhere to attack the city. Isn't that something a hero does?"

Somehow, it was possible for her bright pink cheeks to blush hotter, and as they did so a slight tint of orange peeked out beneath her makeup. "I suppose so, if all the comics are anything to go by."

"So, Relle, you're our city's first ever superhero, which is amazing. But you're also a ghost, and you've been protecting us _from_ ghosts. Is there a specific reason why you're on our side?" he asked intently.

Outwardly, her composure didn't waver too noticeably. Internally, Camry was screaming her head off as she rushed to find a plausible excuse for defending humanity from 'people like her.' 'Why the hell is he asking me such _personal_ questions?'

"Y'know... there are a lot of reasons, I guess," she started slowly, trying to focus on each word as they left her lips. She shifted in her seat to sit up straighter and folded her gloved hands in her lap. "But the main one would have to be because I don't think those other ghosts have any business making a mess of Bailey Lake. I mean, yeah, I'm sure the government could do that kind of job, but the truth is that I'm more or less equipped to deal with the problem myself. I mean, it's not like we can always count on a weapon to always work, right? In a real battle, anything can happen."

Ray nodded a couple of times to let the audience digest her honest answer. "And you've definitely seen your fair share of battles-- tonight was no exception. How was that just a bit ago, with Shasta?"

Relle shrugged with one arm. "About the same. You can see she did something of a number on me." To prove her point, she indicated a fist-sized scorch mark on the bottom of her ribs. The fluttery fabric of her silk shirt did little to hide it but certainly had deflected most of the damage. "Of course, I'll heal soon enough."

"I should hope so!" Ray said. "I didn't get to watch, but I definitely heard it really was something to behold. Now, Relle, the public has been dying-- if you'll excuse the expression-- to know all about you, the _real_ you." Could the cameras see the cold sweat breaking out on her brow? Relle did her best to sound genuine when she snickered at the joke. "What kind of person were you before you became _Relle Phantom?_ "

"O-Oh, well, y'know, just... a normal girl living a normal life," she said. 'Dammit, that's the opening of Miraculous Ladybug's dub, Camry!' she yelled at herself. "I can't really remember how I died, though, or when it was." It hurt her heart to lie, but not as much as it had the first few times she'd done it to keep her secret identity safe. "I'd tell you if I knew."

"Oh, I'm sure," Ray sympathized. "And what is the great Relle Phantom doing when she's not fighting bad guys for the sake of humanity?"

"Psssh," she awkwardly laughed. "Please, 'great' is only me when I'm playing video games." That pulled a few chortles out of the crowd, and it enticed her to keep going with the same feigned confidence. "But I guess I'm doing whatever I feel like doing, y'know? Goofing off like any other normal teenager, surfing the Internet and watching WeTube videos... Actually, I really like HijabiHilighters on there. She's _super_ rad, and since she lives in the general area we're going to do a collaboration video some time in the future-- that is, if I ever find the time away from fighting ghosts."

"Well, Relle, I'd like to think I'm speaking for the entire city when I say that we hope you keep up the good work," Ray said, and Relle accepted the hand he held out to shake. "We'll be right back, everybody, with more from Relle Phantom, the hero of Bailey Lake!"

The television flickered sporadically while the sound cut in and out as a young man clenched his fist so tightly that his knuckles turned white through his tan. Even so, he could see plain as day the way Relle blushed at being called a hero again, and it made his insides boil. The boy rose from the restaurant booth his rear had been occupying for almost an hour, and after leaving his payment and a tip on the table he wormed his way out of the crowd of restaurant patrons fixated on the show. Once back in the fresh air that had cooled with evening, he checked his phone and saw that the broadcast was trending on nearly all social media sites, He let out a frustrated sigh before switching off the device.

"What kind of justice _is_ this?" he groaned. "A ghost suddenly appears and takes all the glory-- just because she can't be stealthy about _anything_.

"Maybe she needs to be taught a thing or two about ghost hunting."

As a plan formed in the back of his brain, a slow smile broke out across his face, and he started off in the direction of his home. This was going to take quite a bit of planning, and he certainly wouldn't be able to do it alone, but something told him he'd already been given a perfect head start on the competition. Now all he needed to do was piece the clues together, and the blasphemy wrought upon the world would be his to use or destroy as he saw fit.

Oh, who was he kidding? He would probably destroy her the first chance he got.

 

 

\----------------------------------------------

Aw yis! New story! How about some world-building for Camry's dimension, everybody? I think that sounds awesome.

So, we're going to see a number of new characters and concepts, but I'm also planning on making this story a little closer in rating to my previous fanfics-- mostly because light swearing is more my style than the PG of the actual show Danny Phantom.

Updating will likely be infrequent and sporadic as this is the middle of my sophomore year of college ( **AAAAAAH!!** ), so please bear with me as I try to balance everything I want to do and need to do. Leave comments, tell me your thoughts, and don't forget to vote! I hope you're as excited about this as I am!


	2. Chapter 2

"Heyo!" The exclamation rang through the foyer when Saoirse opened the front door and revealed one of her best friends standing on the welcome mat. "'Sup?"

"Glad you could come after all," Saoirse said with a smile. She stepped aside to let him in, then let him kick the door shut behind him. "Wait-- did you _run_ all the way here or something?" 

"What gave it away?" he asked knowingly with an obvious pant in his voice. To top it off, his hair was mussed almost beyond saving and his cheeks were flushed bright pink from exertion. 

"Your house is, like, two miles from here!" Saoirse realized as her eyes widened. "How are you not _dying?_ "

"What can I say?" Dude shrugged nonchalantly. "I've just got too much energy in me."

"That's an understatement," she muttered under her breath as she followed him into the living room. Books, pencils, paper, and notes were strewn all over the coffee table, carpet, and couch, which left very little room to actually sit. Dude pushed away a few notebooks stacked on the middle of the couch and flopped down as casually as someone who lived there might; his backpack had been deposited unceremoniously on the floor nearby. "Cam went to get the Chinese food, but she should be back any minute."

"Why didn't we just have it delivered?" he asked, lifting his pierced eyebrow out of perplexity. 

"Something about it being faster if she went and got it herself," Saoirse answered with a sigh that said she was almost as confused about it as he was. "I can't imagine why she would want to go to all that extra trouble, though. And it's not like she has a car to drive there and back."

Dude picked himself up out of his slumped position and leaned forward, pressing his elbows into his knees while he gestured with both hands. "Well, it's not like she's exactly _earthbound_ like we are." He said this in a low voice for fear that the walls had ears-- Camry's parents certainly did, although they weren't home right then.

Saoirse shrugged with both shoulders and picked up a pencil with a brightly-colored grip and almost no eraser left. "If it gets rid of her extra energy and helps her focus on studying _for once_ , then she can do whatever she wants. Same goes for you and _running_ here, ya crazy."

He snickered at that and reached into his bag to pull out his own books and writing utensils. "What're we tacklin' first?"

"You're giving me tips in Spanish," Saoirse insisted. "I seriously don't understand why I have such a hard time getting this-- and on that same topic, how are you so amazingly good at languages? I'm so jealous!"

"Which part gives you the most trouble?" he asked, leaning toward her to look at the papers spread out on the table between them. Before she could answer him, a pair of small hands covered his eyes from behind. "Cam, _finally_ ," Dude immediately sighed with relief. "You have no idea how much of an appetite I worked up on the way here!" 

"Whaaat?" Camirelle groaned as she retracted her hands and pouted. "How'd you know it was me so quickly?" Her cheeks were colored pink in a manner similar to Dude's, but the state of her hair was much more pristine since she had been in her ghost form while on the way to the restaurant and back.

"Uh, maybe the smell of Chinese food filling the air?" Dude answered cockily. "But it's not like we're expecting anyone else to show up, either." 

"Can you explain to us why you decided to go out and get the food yourself when we could've just had it delivered?" Saoirse asked pointedly. "Not that I'm complaining if it gets out your need to fidget while we're studying."

"'Cause I had the _best_ idea ever!" Camry announced loudly, then quietened when she realized how her voice had filled the room so completely. "I kept the food hot while I was running, you guys. We'll never have to deal with stuff being cold ever again!" To prove her point, the biodegradable plastic bag full of to-go boxes looked to be steaming as if the food had come off the stove only seconds ago. 

Her best friends positively lit up at the sight, and as Camry doled out the boxes she had to be sure she hadn't accidentally burned the bottoms with her heat. Volcanic ghost powers, needless to say, were anything but a picnic to harness and control with continuous precision. When she settled in on the carpeted floor with a friend on either side, they postponed studying long enough to talk and eat. 

"Okay, okay, but I gotta say this, Cam," Dude began playfully around the bite of rice and spicy pork stuffed into one cheek. "'Great is only me when I'm playing video games'-- what the hell? You _suck_ at video games!" 

Camry sputtered out a laugh and risked spraying her own rice on her advanced chemistry homework. " _Ahaha_ \--! Oh, man, you have _no_ idea what it's like to be on that side of the camera. The second I said "a normal girl with a normal life," I started thinking about Miraculous Ladybug-- and we all know Marinette _owns_ at video games," she added as an aside aimed mostly at Saoirse, who nodded and grinned behind her hand as she chewed, "-- so I just kept thinking about that somewhere in my head! _Ugh_ , I was beating myself up _so much_ about that afterwards. I _lied_ on national TV!"

"At least you managed to scoot in a little promo for my channel," Saoirse joked. "We can't let you forget who got you looking so perfect for your appearance."

"Let's not also forget who nearly ruined all of your hard work," Camry added in a deadpan tone. "I swear, if Shasta could just _get a life_ \-- Oh, wait."

A split second of silence fell over the three of them, but as soon as it had come it was blasted away by everyone guffawing at the top of their lungs. When the noise had died down, Saoirse and Camry were leaning on each other around the corner of the coffee table and Dude's arms were wrapped around his aching middle. Laughs dwindled into giggles, and Camry wiped at her eye with an index finger. "I'm so glad we can joke about all of this so easily, to be honest," Saoirse commented casually before taking another bite of her vegetarian lo mein. 

"It's how I cope," she answered lightly, scooping up more rice to shovel into her hungry mouth. "So, when are we actually going to deliver on that collab promise? Do you know what we want to do yet?"

Saoirse hummed pensively as she ate, and after swallowing she finally spoke. "I've gotten a lot of comments in my discussion board about that, and a few people suggested a Q&A--"

"I think I've had enough questions asked about me," Camry interjected smoothly in the way only people who have been talking together for years can.

"--right, I figured you would say something like that," Saoirse agreed, "so maybe we'll make up a game to play and make it a rule that you can't use your powers or something. I think it'd do your public image some good if they can see you're really similar to a regular person, even if you are a 'ghost.'"

"All those questions Ray was asking last night really made it clear that there's a distinction between us and you," Dude remembered in a murmur, his chin in his hand as he spoke.

"I did catch that, yeah," Cam agreed with a slight frown. "Hmm..."

"But we can think about that later, 'cause we have term tests coming up and need to study," Saoirse piped up with stern authority in her tone. "That's why we're here in the first place, after all." On that note, pencils were picked up, empty food cartons were pushed aside, and the three sixteen-year-olds begrudgingly buckled down to work. 

 

Crom Cruach's attack on Bailey Lake had lasted up until the end of last year, 2015. Now that it was April, 2016, Camry had had her sixteenth birthday and caught up with her friends. Their school year had been extended into June and roughly half of July to make up for lost time thanks to Crom-- it was an arrangement that had left most students very unhappy at the prospect of such a drastically shortened summer. 

To top it all off, classes had been concentrated, in a sense, in order to teach nine months' worth of schooling in six and a half months. Thanks to that, coursework had become heavier than usual and limited students' free time-- hence why our heroes were now studying in the Dowell residence's living room instead of goofing off like they so wanted to. Even Saoirse's piano lessons and Camry's dance and self-defense classes had to be cut down on to make time for their general educations. It was little wonder why Camry had been compelled to run to the Chinese restaurant and back; the lack of exercise in her cramped schedule had her mentally crawling up the walls out of stifled frustration. 

And to top it all off, the frequent ghost attacks on the city had the super-heroine and her two best friends neglecting homework and other responsibilities in order to save people from burning buildings, horrible accidents, and the psychotic undead, to name a few of the most frequent disasters. The chance to gather together just to study in peace was such a rarity that it was always made into something of a party with take-out or pizza. 

If there was anything to look forward to at all, it was that after this week of school and tests, a reluctantly-given spring break would be theirs for the taking. Camry in particular planned on sleeping whenever she could, visiting the dance studio and jiu-jitsu dojo often, and practicing using her powers against opponents and fake targets alike. 

From inside her pocket, Camry's cell phone dinged with a text notification, and when she pulled it out the first thing she saw was the name "Mom" in the header. After peeling herself off of her third year French homework-- which was a piece of cake, in all honesty-- she opened the text and skimmed over it quickly. At the end, an anguished groan was pulled from her throat and had her lolling her head back in annoyance. 

"Wh'sup?" Dude asked without looking up from his geometry textbook. 

"I totally forgot about the cotillion next week," she lamented. The impact of her forehead banging into the coffee table made pencils rattle and ripples appear on the surface of their drinks. " _Whyyy did I ever agree to that_...?"

"You still aren't ready for that?" Saoirse asked incredulously. "I've had my dress picked out for weeks!"

"Guys, guys," Dude cut in impatiently. "What ' _cotillion?_ '" 

"A stupid, fancy dance event my mom is making me go to since I'm sixteen now," Camry answered woefully. "For 'young ladies who are coming into their own in the world' or some such nonsense." 

"I would'a thought you'd be excited about a dance," Dude said curiously. "Haven't you been dancing since you were a little kid?"

"Yeah, but it's _way_ more than that," she said, lifting her head to rest her chin on the table. 

"We have to take lessons on etiquette before the cotillion, and it's just _such_ a superficial nightmare," Saoirse added with a well-practiced roll of her eyes. "Be glad you never have to be in our shoes, Dude. I'd so much rather be practicing parkour at the skate park with you than trying to remember which fork is which."

"And there's really no way you can get out of it?" he asked. 

"Not unless a ghost attacks..." Camry trailed off thoughtfully, a mischievous grin slowly blooming on her face.

" _Camry_ ," Saoirse warned. "No. _Absolutely_ not."

" _What?_ " Cam immediately asked in defense, her smile dropping. "I wasn't gonna do anything!"

"You were thinking about getting a ghost to attack on that night so we wouldn't have to go," she divined, hitting the nail on the head in the most accurate of ways. 

Camry felt her cheeks adopt a tint of pink at being caught. "Well, uh, I mean... if it gets us out of it, the end justifies the means, right?" she awkwardly tried. 

Dude smirked and took a bite of his cooling food. It gathered into his cheek so he could talk. "Aw, you two act like such a married couple, reading each others' thoughts and stuff."

Now Saoirse was blushing as well, and Camry's heightened embarrassment raised the temperature of the room a few noticeable degrees. Still, the shorter of the two girls fought through it to grin, and she spun the stimming ring on her right middle finger a few times back and forth. She was about to say something in answer to that when the front door opened and two pairs of footsteps entered the scene. "Oh, hi, Mom, Dad!" Camry called out to her parents.

"Hey, sweetie," Sadie Dowell answered as she passed the entrance to the living room on her way to the kitchen. "Hard at work, you three?" Mason was a few paces behind her, and each carried a few reusable shopping bags full of groceries.

"Well, up to a certain point," Saoirse said in reply. "But we're making progress."

"Oh, good. Did you get my text, Cammie?" 

Camry's features pinched in distaste, but she set her pencil down and turned to talk at the kitchen doorway. "Yeah, I did... I still don't want to go, Mom."

Her mother's groan of annoyance was audible from the adjacent room. "We're not discussing this any further, Camry. Or would you rather we took your new camera back to the store?"

" _No_..." the teen grumbled, resting her elbow on the table and her chin in her palm. 

Dude patted her shoulder in sympathy, and Saoirse forced a smile of solidarity. "At least we'll be there together," she pointed out optimistically. "I won't let any of the boys dance with you, if that's what you want."

"Watch as they pair everyone up like that for a waltz or something, though," Camry sighed, dejected. 

"Then you'll just have to lead!" Dude laughed and effectively brightened up the atmosphere in the room. The thought had the two girls giggling, particularly Camry as she imagined schooling a pompous rich boy in the art of the dance no matter how hard he tried to assume command. 

"Excellent point, there," she admitted cheerfully. "But, uh, maybe we should get back to algebra."

~~~

Fun Ghost Fact You Probably Didn't Know #31: It's actually really hard to maintain a transformation in the heat (please forgive the pun) of battle.

I'm not entirely sure why that seems to be the case, but as I'm fighting the ghosts that come to Bailey Lake to try and overpower me, I often can feel my resolve to remain as a ghost slipping away little by little. It isn't exactly a constant, and sometimes I've gone through entire battles without feeling the urge to change back, but whenever there's a lull in the banter and blows I sense a tectonic shift of willpower deep inside of me. So far I've avoided losing control in places where my secret could be exposed to the world, but there have been too many close calls to count in just the last few months. 

Thank goodness for Saoirse and Dude, of course. They've had my back since Day One down at the lake. I have to admit, I was a little worried about them fighting with me (albeit from the sidelines more often than not), and even with their amazing skills to protect themselves I'm still nervous to see them so close to danger. It's not like I ever had to ask them for help, though-- they were always just there. The two of them have kept my secret safe from the rest of the world without a second thought, just as I've rescued them time and time again without hesitation. That's what a team is all about, I suppose.

Still, maintaining a transformation is too important in keeping my secret identity a secret. Maybe all I need to do is practice and train harder. After all, it's not like I'll be as good at being a half-ghost as Danny is right away, right? 

"Come on, Cam. Just one more!" 

"Ugh, it's too hard!"

"We're almost there, c'mon! I know you can do it!"

"Dude, _help me!_ "

" _Oh, my, goodness_ , you two," Saoirse sighed as she pressed the tips of her fingers to her forehead and shut her eyes. The apples of her cheeks burned bright with embarrassment while pop music blared from hidden speakers throughout the store. "Just pick one!"

Was I training like I should have been right then? Of course not. I was at the Delta Pin Shopping Center, browsing the new promotional items at Scrubbles at Dude's insistence. Our trio's shopping basket was almost full, but we needed one more item to reach the sale goal. 

"There are just too many to pick from!" I complained, gripping the metal handles of the basket tight. "I don't even want most of these, anyway. Dude, you pick it." 

"What about something for your sister?" Saoirse jumped in quickly, her eyes lit up at the idea that maybe we were almost done being in this overly fancy bath and body care store. I knew from past experience that she was nearing her emotional stamina limit for being out and about in such a crowded place. I was right there with her, but Dude, with his boundless energy reserves and untamable excitement for deals, had dragged us into the store and insisted we take advantage of the sale. "What kind of scents does she like?"

"Uhhh..." Dude hummed, frowning seriously at the spread of scrubs, lotions, sprays, and soaps. After a few seconds too long of hesitation, I and Saoirse both raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. 

"Do you... not know what she likes?" I guessed.

"Well," he said a bit too quickly in his defense, "we don't usually get much of a choice in the stuff we get-- this kind of stuff, I mean. Mom always buys whatever's cheapest, y'know? But... I bet Ariadna would like vanilla, so let's get her that lotion." 

Omniscient POV~

Between the two of them, Saoirse and Camry shared a look behind Dude's back as he reached for the bottle standing proudly on the display table. It wasn't every day that they were reminded of how Dude and his small family weren't as well off as their own families, and each instance that brought that fact to life wracked them with a guilt that didn't seem to have been founded in an entirely logical state of mind. What could they honestly do about it as mere teenagers? 

With just a tilt of her head, Saoirse communicated a question to her girlfriend, who immediately nodded and dug into her basket to put some of the items back where she found them. Dude saw her returning the bottles and asked, "What, did you change your mind or something?"

"Well, see, I had a thought," Camry began as she fixed some of the bottles so they sat neatly in a row. "I don't really need or want some of these, and it sounds to me like Ariadna doesn't have one of these body scrubs, which is just _criminal_."

"And she _at least_ has to have a scent spray-- a small one for her backpack, and a bigger one for at home," Saoirse added, scooping up said items in the same vanilla scent and depositing them in the basket. "Throw in a to-go hand sanitizer and carrying pouch, and we've almost reached the minimum for the sale, right?" 

"We've got room for one more thing if you want to pick out something else, Dude," Camry said with a warm smile at her best friend. "What do you think your mom would like?"

Both his pierced and un-pierced eyebrow were high up on his forehead as Dude looked between the two of them. "You guys really don't want anything for yourselves?"

"Nah. I think I still have some of these left over from last spring, anyway," Saoirse assured him cheerfully. 

"It's cool, Dude," Camry chimed in. "We've got it covered."

" _Awww!_ " he cooed. "You guys are so sweet! They're gonna _love_ this!" 

After making their purchases (Camry insisted on paying, but Saoirse vowed to pay back half later on) and exiting the store with its constant, overpowering mixture of fragrances, the trio found themselves standing at the edge of a sea of shoppers. Just a few paces away was a fountain bubbling merrily under the din of noisy chatter; Saoirse caught herself staring at the fountain just a bit too long and had to catch up to the other two when they began to cluelessly walk away. 

"Oh, hey," Cam said when Saoirse caught up to them. "Did we lose you?"

"Just for a second," she admitted. "Looking at the fountain made me think of when I turned off the shield generator to let you all in."

"Talk about a close call," Dude remembered with a single note of breathy laughter. 

"Not for you, though," Camry reminded him with a gentle nudge of her elbow. "You could just walk through the shield like no big deal, remember?"

"Sure, sure, but the snakes still almost got us on our way back here," he countered. 

Camirelle shrugged her shoulders in concession at that, the shopping bag from Scrubbles dangling from one hand effortlessly despite its rather impressive weight. The topic of conversation veered sharply away from the Crom attack to more trivial, lighthearted matters and morphed into the kinds of things most teenagers would talk about together: school, vacations, wants and the like. 

Little did any of them know that a familiar face was in the crowd, and he was fixated intently on one particular person in their group. The 'spy' frowned contemplatively and tapped his down-turned lips idly, his mind reeling with possibilities for taking action. After watching them disappear around a corner, he shook his head and turned to leave. Here was not a good place to test his theory, even if he was positively itching to do so. 

'I'll find out for myself whether I'm right or just crazy-- before spring break. I'm going to discover the truth no matter what.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I end yet another chapter on a vague note. I'm so sorry for the slow, slowww beginning, but it will begin to pick up soon, I promise. Just be patient for a little longer, okay? Winter break will be a great time for me to do some writing. 
> 
> In any case, please leave a comment down below and vote for this chapter! I hope you'll join me for the next chapter when I release it. WUVS!


	3. Chapter 3

"Ugh," I groaned under my breath as I tapped the tip of my pencil against the same spot on the page over and over again, making the dot darker each time. The test questions glared back at me, refusing to be solved despite all the time I had spent studying the night before. How was I supposed to do this, again...?

"Pencils down," the teacher called out as she assumed her place behind the podium at the head of the class. The whiteboard behind her was blank save for the "20 minutes left" she had written up there roughly twenty minutes ago. "Pass your papers to the front of the class, please, and I'll see you all tomorrow for the real test. Don't forget to study extra hard on the questions you had the most difficulty with!" she added loudly over the bustle of students hurriedly gathering their things to leave for the day.

Another quiet groan escaped me as I handed up my pretest; too many questions were completely blank or covered in faint ghosts of the answers I had erased. There was _no way_ I was getting a good grade on the real test tomorrow. 'Let that be a lesson in why I shouldn't force myself to stay awake so late just for studying' I thought while shoving my notebooks deep into my well-loved backpack.

Suddenly, I was aware of a tall presence just in my peripheral vision and turned to look at whoever was standing there, facing me like they wanted to talk. Despite how down I was about the pretest, I managed to throw on something akin to a smile. "Hey, qué pasa?" I asked.

It was an athletic-looking guy everyone knew to always sit in the back of the room in every class. It wasn't like I knew everyone's names in all of my classes, but a whisper at the back of my brain told me he was Kordelle. After all, who could misplace his Australian accent?

His dirty-blond hair was thrown up in its usual ponytail, and he held all of his books in his arms rather than a backpack, strangely enough. Kordelle smiled back a little, but by the way his eyes didn't match I could tell something depressing was on his mind. "Heya, Dude. Man, I just... sorry to bother you, but did you get anything about finding the equations for some of those functions?"

"Not so much," I admitted with a mournful little laugh. "I tried to study last night, but I got so distracted by other stuff that I didn't have a lot of time." A yawn broke free of my chest, and I had to stifle it with one hand. 'Of course, those distractions just so happened to be a ghost attack downtown, _buuut_...'

"I know how you feel," Kordelle agreed. "I was kinda hoping, I dunno, maybe you could help me figure this stuff out before the test tomorrow? I see you studying in the library with your two friends all the time, so... maybe I could join your study group? If it's not any trouble, of course."

My response was immediate, if not thought through very well. "Of course, man! Yeah, let's go right now!" Backpack strap on my shoulder, I was halfway to the door when a sudden realization hit me. "Oh, crap, that's right. Camry and Saoirse are kinda busy with something after school today... but maybe we can puzzle this out without them, y'know?"

The idea seemed alright with him since he nodded with a mild shrug and followed me down the hallway. For some reason, I felt compelled to glance at the handkerchief tied around Kordelle's neck; I never saw him without it, even on the hottest of days. He also wore a couple of metallic rings, and a charm dangled from his ponytail holder. 'Extraño...' I thought to myself. I didn't know this guy hardly at all, and it didn't seem like he was too keen on getting to know anyone at school-- except for now, that is.

Cool! A potential new friend is always an accepted challenge.

Our friend group's usual table was taken up by a handful of freshman in the library, which was a bummer but not a big deal. Kordelle and I found a different spot under the windows and out of the direct line of sight by the main doors. He set his books down with a noisy bang that drew more than a few pairs of eyes, but he flinched and looked at me apologetically first, then at the elderly librarian giving him the evil eye. " _Sorry_ ," he drawled quietly after a short, awkward chuckle.

"I'm kinda surprised you don't carry your stuff in a backpack," I commented idly as I swung my chair around to straddle it backwards, just how I liked it. "Would probably be easier on your arms."

"Eh, I hate having the weight drag me down backwards," Kordelle answered. We each pulled out our math books with the intention of studying, but before we had even flipped to the right chapter I found myself itching with a question on the tip of my tongue.

Then I was blurting it out! "Kordelle, wait, what are your eyes?" The way I asked it, so desperate to know, startled me a little bit. Why was something so simple as an eye color suddenly immensely important for me to know?

When he looked up from his textbook, I caught a perfect view of the multicolored streaks shimmering through spaces between tawny brown. "Australian boulder opal, mate. I guess we're opalescent brothers, huh?"

I grinned at that. "I don't think I've ever met anyone else with opal eyes-- except for my sister, of course. This is so cool! And fitting, what with your accent and all."

"I guess so," he agreed with a smile back at me. Outside, a springtime rainstorm brewed on the horizon, but it likely wouldn't pass over us for a while to come. "So, what are your eyes, Dude?"

"Floral harlequin black opal," I answered readily. "Kinda a mouthful, am I right?"

"Not that much more than 'Australian boulder opal.'"

Meanwhile~

"Remind me again why I agreed to do this?" I hissed under my breath to Saoirse as I leaned up and sideways to be heard better.

She closed her eyes for a second and let out a calm breath. "Your new _camera_ , Cam. And to make your mom happy."

We-- and by 'we,' I mean Saoirse, me, and about thirty other girls our age-- were standing rigidly in a straight line as our etiquette instructor stepped past, her posture screaming 'arrogance and money' with every swish of her pleated knee-length skirts. Even with a volcanic core hidden deep inside my other half to keep me warm, I couldn't help but shiver as the Dutch woman drew near and breezed by. If my stimming ring didn't make little jingling noises every time I used it, I would have been spinning it up and down my entire finger nonstop to try and calm my racing heart. Not even a fight with Shasta or Lord Batron could get me as nervous as Mrs. Bosch's penetrating stare.

"I don't wanna be heeere..." I muttered.

"Ladies, I am sure you are all very excited for your night of enchantment next week," Mrs. Bosch began, her voice carrying to all corners of the room. High heeled footsteps echoed off the polished wood floor of the community dance studio. The room I usually took classes from Madame Descoteaux was just on the floor above, as a matter of fact. "However, there are _many_ things you will need to learn before you can even _consider_ yourself proper ladies fit to debut at the cotillion." 

She took a stance facing our lineup and let her gaze roam back and forth down the row. "As you surely know by now, that is exactly why I am here: to teach you the do's and don't's of being a proper lady attending such a prestigious event. You will learn to dance, sit, stand, walk, and even eat, as there will be a brief banquet before the dancing and mingling begins."

Hidden by the folds of our jackets, Saoirse and I automatically linked hands for support. The gesture was small, but it helped me feel less like I was overreacting with how much I didn't want to do any of this. Why was this cotillion being run like boot camp in the first place? Something told me we weren't the only two who thought this was unnecessary. 

After all, in my case especially, couldn't we just dance how we wanted to? With eating, sure, I guess I could see why we would need to learn proper table manners for a fancy event like this, but dancing could be a little freer and fun, couldn't it? That's part of why dancing is so enjoyable in the first place!

"For today, we will work on the basics of the standard waltz," Mrs. Bosch continued. All that she needed to complete her look as an uptight governess was a riding crop and a snugly coiled bun at the back of her head. "Who here already knows how to dance the waltz? Raise your hand."

Only a couple of hands went up into the air, including my own, and Saoirse timidly lifted hers a short distance to indicate her uncertainty. I know I had shown her the steps once or twice in the past, so maybe those memories could be rekindled with some practice. 'If we get the chance to partner up, then I can reteach her!' I thought happily. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all.

Mrs. Bosch's icy geode-like eyes picked out those of us who had silently replied and singled out a girl near the middle of the lineup. I didn't know her, so I assumed she went to another school in the city. "What is your name?" the instructor asked her. 

"Jordy," she answered, rubbing a sweater-clad arm awkwardly. Even from seven or eight taller girls away, I could tell just by the tone of her voice that she was trying really hard not to meet Mrs. Bosch's eye.

"That's 'Jordy, _Ma'am_ ,'" our instructor snapped, her brow heavy with a frown. "Repeat it."

"M-My name is Jordy, Ma'am," she echoed in a higher tone. 

"Wonderful to meet you, Jordy," Mrs. Bosch said cordially. "You say you know how to dance the waltz?"

"Yeah, my dad taught me how to," Jordy answered. I dared to lean forward enough to peer around the other girls standing in line and managed to catch a glimpse of her. Jordy was a heavy-set girl with very dark hair and multiple piercings in her ears. A quick glance down offered me the sight of galaxy-print converse that were well-kept and made me want a pair of my own. 

Mrs. Bosch was back to frowning again in record time and cupped a hand around her ear. "I'm sorry; did you say something, Miss Jordy?"

Jordy shrank back a little, a look of utter confusion painted clearly across her young face. "I-I, uhm, yeah? I did?"

"There it is again: I swear you're saying something, but then you say 'yeah' and nothing else comes after." The instructor strutted away then, leaving a bright red burn of embarrassment on Jordy's cheeks. "We do not say 'yeah' in this classroom, everyone. We will say 'yes,' 'yes please,' or, in some cases, 'absolutely.' If you do say 'yeah,' your words will fall on deaf ears without fail. Do I make myself clear?" 

"Yes, Mrs. Bosch," rang out from the mouths of most girls in the line, excepting Saoirse and myself as we were busy exchanging worried glances. This _really_ was starting to go south at breakneck speed.

"Very good," she appraised stiffly, resuming a commanding pose in the center of the room. "Now, I think it best if we move right on ahead to waltzing lessons. Miss Jordy." Her geode eyes flicked over to the already-chagrined teenager, who squeaked when her name was called out like she was in trouble. 

'I can weirdly relate' I thought dryly. 

"Y-Yes, Mrs. Bosch?" 

The Dutch woman beckoned to her with a single gesture of her hand. "Step forward, if you please, and prepare to show us what you know of the waltz. Everyone else, I want you to pay very close attention to Miss Jordy. We will determine whether this is a lesson in what to do or what _not_ to do." 

I must have made some sort of indicative motion because Saoirse's grip on my hand tightened as if to warn me. I elected to ignore it and raised my other hand before my common sense could tell me otherwise. "Mrs. Bosch!" I called out a little too loudly, gaining all eyes in the room in a matter of a single second.

Her gaze, not unlike a hawk, zeroed in on me as I stood there with a defiant stare on my face. "What is it? State your name before answering that."

"M-My name is Camry, Ma'am," I began, "and I have a question about this cotillion etiquette program."

"Well, _Camry_ , all questions can wait until the end or be directed to the information online--" she said, but I guess something in me wasn't willing to be brushed off so easily today. 

After a large inhale of breath in the middle of her answer, I blurted out, "Are the _boys_ being forced to learn _nearly_ as much as we are, Ma'am?" 

Up and down the line, I could hear hushed murmuring rise up-- some of it supportive, but most of it a little accusatory. Mrs. Bosch's piercing stare dropped in temperature and kindness, but I held my ground. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Saoirse look away like she was afraid of what would happen to me.

_Click, click, click, click_. Mrs. Bosch's heels clacking against the floor reverberated throughout the dance studio and brought her to stand very close in front of me. "Would you mind repeating that question, Miss Camry?" she asked in a falsely sweet tone of voice.

I cleared my throat a little before answering. "I asked you if the boys were being put through nearly as much etiquette prep as we are, Ma'am, because right now, it seems like we aren't being treated too kindly."

"And you want to know if sexism is playing a role; is that it?" Mrs. Bosch asked sharply, to which I nodded mutely. " _Is that it?_ " she yelled, and this time I answered verbally.

"Yes, that's it--! Ma'am," I added quickly. 

"Well, as long as we are on the same page." She performed a brisk about face and put her hands behind her back in a way that was probably meant to be casual but still managed to appear rigid. "Miss Camry, you will be pleased to know that the young men attending the cotillion are also being taught the proper way to eat, to dance, and to make conversation with the refined opposite sex. They are not being given an easier course, although I must warn you that your continued outbursts could very well make this class _much_ harder by comparison. Is that what you want?"

"N-No, of course not. --Ma'am," I answered. 'Oops.'

"I can't imagine why it would be what you want, or what any of your classmates want, so I suggest you hold your tongue and keep it in check." On that note, she went back to staring us all down. "However, since you are clearly one to step forward with what is on your mind, why don't you and Miss Jordy both show us how to waltz? Simply pretend your partners are invisible, or whatever you must do to get it right."

"Yes, Ma'am," Jordy replied, and I resisted the urge to nod again as Saoirse and I broke apart so I could walk over to the other girl. Mrs. Bosch pulled a phone out of her skirt pocket and started some slow, orchestral waltz music. As she turned up the volume, I waved to Jordy with a reassuring smile on my face and leaned in so she could hear me. 

"Hey, I'll take the lead if you're okay with that," I suggested. Her answer was a noncommittal shrug that I took as 'sure, why not?' 

Stepping into the rhythm was as simple as breathing to me, so it was easy enough to guide the taller girl into the right spot to come in. I easily took her waist and hand, and she rested a shy, light hand on my shoulder. I took the first step, and she followed my lead half a moment later. Soon enough, we were twirling around the space in between the line and a skeptical Mrs. Bosch. The music halted all of a sudden, causing Jordy to step back and take back her hand; I let go of her waist and turned around to face Mrs. Bosch with a confused look on my face. 

"That's enough of a demonstration, ladies. Thank you for your participation." With that, we were dismissed back to our places in line. I could tell by the tightness around her lip that Mrs. Bosch was slightly less than pleased with our behavior-- or at least with my behavior in particular. 'I just _had_ to speak up, didn't I...'

Omniscient POV~

Meanwhile, back at the school library, Kordelle froze mid-sentence and immediately looked out the window, where the Sky Trio Towers were just barely visible in the distance. He frowned, then let out a sigh and turned back to look at Dude. "Sorry, it looks like I forgot I had to go do something at home this afternoon. But hey, you can borrow my notes for this chapter." He held out a couple of rumpled loose-leaf pages absolutely covered in math and arrows pointing from explanations to examples of work. As much of a mess as it was, it also seemed to work well enough to get the information across. 

Dude accepted it with a smile. "Thanks, man! You sure you won't need them, though?"

"Nah, it's alright," Kordelle assured him. "I'll see you tomorrow for the test."

"Count on it. See ya later!" 

Kordelle had already gathered his things into his arms and was on his way out of the library when Dude looked down at the pages he had been given. In all of the corners were interesting little doodles, random symbols that could have just been the scribbles of a bored student. 'That doesn't make much sense, though...' he thought as he took in the remarkably comprehensive guides to getting the right answers. 

On that note, he rose from his oddly-angled seat to pack up as well. There was no point in sticking around the library by himself, so it was back home to cram for the test. When everything was stowed away in his backpack, Dude pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to both Saoirse and Cam to ask how their etiquette class was going. 

Camry's POV~

Class continued in a similar manner, with Mrs. Bosch intimidating us all and imposing strict rules at the drop of a hat. Today was dedicated to learning dance steps, so I took it upon myself to snag Saoirse as much as possible and refresh her memory. To make a long story short, the fact that I repeatedly took the lead without even thinking about it brought multiple warnings from Mrs. Bosch down on my head. "You'll need to know how to let your partner take the lead at the cotillion, Miss Camry." 

Just when I thought I was going to blow a gasket from all the yelling and harsh words being flung left and right, something I would normally dread brought a sudden wave of relief careening through my veins. I hiccuped and instinctively slapped a hand over my mouth to stifle the wisp of smoke that floated out from between my lips. A ghost was nearby! Judging by the thickness and color, it wasn't a particularly dangerous enemy that was surely bent on causing some mayhem in the city. 

'Oh, thank goodness,' I thought with a sigh just before a knot of uncertainty clenched in my stomach. 'But how the hell am I going to get out of here to go fight?' I glanced left and right quickly, searching for any sort of opportunity I could use to excuse myself from the studio. As far as I could tell, there was nothing readily available.

Saoirse met my eyes from across the room when she walked back in, having prayed for the last few minutes out in the hallway. Mrs. Bosch hadn't let me go out with her to stand watch, by the way. Maybe I'm a little too easy for her to read, since she seemed to immediately understand what was going on when she saw the determined yet slightly panicked expression on my face. 

I raised my hand quickly and stared at our instructor, mentally willing her to look my way and acknowledge my need to ask a question. After a few tense seconds, she turned around and let out an annoyed breath before saying, "Yes, Miss Camry?"

"Can-- err, _may_ I use the restroom, please?" That had been one of the things she warned us about earlier in the lesson.

"We end our session in twenty minutes. I'm sure you can hold it in until then," was her short reply before turning back around to assess how the rest of the class was doing. 

I grit my teeth in silent anger and clenched both fists by my sides. 'Oh, come on! Don't you know I've got a city to save A.S.A.P.?' 

Well, she didn't, which is kind of the point of secret identities and all, but I digress.

"I don't think I can, though," I piped up in a last ditch attempt. "I've been holding it in for a really long time, Mrs. Bosch!"

An exasperated groan left her mouth as she waved a flippant hand. "Fine, fine! Go to the bathroom, but come _right_ back. Understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am!" I chirped, already on my way out the door. Saoirse offered me a reassuring smile as I rushed past her; I returned it happily and resisted the urge to blow my girlfriend a kiss for good measure. Then I was out in the hall and high-tailing it to the restroom, where a stall would become my metaphorical phone booth. I slammed the door shut behind me and locked it before closing my eyes to concentrate.

The orange-tinted rings of white light appeared around my waist and split in two to travel in opposite directions, changing me as they went along. My old T-shirt and leggings transformed into a form-fitting hazmat suit, tawny boots with horizontal orange stripes, and a flowing gossamer slip that did a lot more than just look elegant. When my short hair, now sky blue and faintly glowing, settled back down around my chin, I grinned and turned intangible to take off running through the building's walls. As soon as I was back out in the crisp mid-spring air, I sucked in a deep breath that filled my lungs with fiery energy. 

I never thought the sounds of mayhem would bring a smile to my face, but it meant I had an impending job to do, and right then I couldn't have been happier to jump right into work. "I wonder who it's gonna be today," I commented to myself as I darted across my tiles, picking up speed until I was zooming faster than any other human down streets and over buildings that steadily got taller and more industrial the closer I got to the center of the city. 

My eyes flicked all over my field of vision in search of the ghostly threat causing the panic of afternoon shoppers and business-people around the downtown area. There, near the fourth floor of the Sky Trio Towers! A wraith-like man dressed in dapper clothing and twirling a slender cane as he strolled on the air was spooking people with his presence. I frowned, glancing around for a hint at what he was planning but coming up with nothing. I drew closer and opened my mouth to call out to him, but the words caught in my throat when he suddenly spun around and leveled a stern glare at me. 

"Well, it seemed like you would _never_ arrive," he commented in slightly accented English, like he had come to America from somewhere in Europe a century or so ago. 

"Lord Batron," I sighed. "What're you doing here? Looking to do a little shopping?"

"Only if your demise is on sale," he quipped, whipping up his cane and aiming it right at me. He closed one eye and pressed a button on the handle, which sent out a bolt of lightning to arc through the air. I was already prepped for it, though, and past experience had taught me that simply throwing up a shield wasn't enough to evade the attack effectively. I gathered power in my hands and put them side by side to release a shot of green ghostly energy; it dispersed the lightning harmlessly into the surrounding air, which crackled ominously in the background of our 'conversation.'

"Look, as happy as I am that you got me out of something _super_ annoying, I don't appreciate you coming here to wreck things," I called out to the spindly, Tim Burton-esque ghost. "Either go back to the Ghost Zone right now, or enter a world of pain. Your choice." To try and look more intimidating, I crossed my arms over my chest and slightly widened my stance on my smooth, white film negative tile. 

Lord Batron apparently thought that was funny, seeing as how he chortled and flew straight up into the air. His reflection in the windows of the Sky Trio Towers was broken up by all the panes as he passed by. I rolled my eyes and envisioned a set of well-spaced tiles with fast-forward symbols pointed toward the sky, then jumped on to rocket after Lord Batron. Running vertically could hardly be considered much of a challenge after so much practice doing it, so I decided to add another layer of difficulty by aiming and shooting bolts of fire after the well-dressed ghost. He dodged them easily enough and paused near the top of the closest skyscraper to look back with a smirk on his sallow face. 

"Your persistence is admirable, I will admit," he complimented arrogantly when I finished my ascension and stood close to the railing of the building. "However, I doubt you can evade _all_ of my inventions at--!" 

I tensed, prepared for anything he might throw at me. Lord Batron reminded me of an old-timey steampunk inventor with all his traps and tricks he had up his sleeves. But if he sounded so confident, then why did he suddenly stop talking? And why were his eyes so round with... what is that, _fear?_

Before I could quite comprehend what was going on, he had seized my wrist and begun to fly out of the triangle the Sky Trio Towers formed around a park far below our feet. "H-Hey!" I yelled, bewildered at the fact that he wasn't exactly attacking me. I was preparing to twist free of his long-fingered grip when a bright flash of light just beside me exploded with a deafening _bang!_ Lord Batron swerved away only to drag us toward another explosion, much to my high-strung confusion.

" _What is going on?_ " I yelled at the ghost, but got no reply whatsoever. "Let me _go_ , Batron!"

"You will be grateful to me for this later!" he answered, but instead of the high-and-mighty tone he usually spoke with, I heard nothing but panic and desperation in his words. 

"No! What the hell?" I shrieked, still struggling but not quite so emphatically. "Tell me what the deal is!"

As we flew along-- or he flew and I flapped stupidly in tow-- the buildings of downtown blurred together and I realized we were heading in the direction of the lake. I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw another explosion appear from what looked like nothing only a few feet away. If Lord Batron had been flying any slower, I probably would have been hit by the edges of the shock wave, but instead he pulled me away fast enough to avoid it. Still, the concussive sound was loud enough to leave a high-pitched ringing in my ears. 

"Hold on a second!" I screeched to no avail. Why in the world was Lord Batron so hellbent on dragging me along with him? 

"There will be time for that later!" he yelled back-- or, at least, I think that's what he yelled. The ringing in my ears was making it harder to hear him, and the wind blowing past wasn't helping, either. "Right now, we need to hurry home!"

"Huh? Did you say _home?_ " I echoed. 

We were almost to the beach, and the city buildings were falling away to be replaced by homes, shops, and empty lots, some of which were riddled with evidence of my previous battles. "Are we being chased? Why are you--?"

"Relle, no more questions until we are through the portal!" Lord Batron snapped urgently, his grip tightening on my wrist in warning. My expression hardened at that, and I fought to be a little more upright before twisting myself out of his grasp. Momentum carried me forward while gravity dragged me down, and I came to a rough, tumbling halt on a floor of my own film negatives. As I picked myself up piece by piece, I felt the ringing in my ears grow a little louder while a wave of dizziness blurred my vision and upset my balance. 

"We are almost there, you foolish child!" Lord Batron shouted at me as he doubled back to hover in front of me. Below my feet and his wispy tail, lake water lapped at the gravelly shore peacefully.

"Tell me what's going on!" I roared back at him. "How do I know you're not trying to kidnap me?"

"I said no more questions!" he answered, reaching for me again. I jumped back, and my arms shot up in a defensive pose. 

"We aren't going _anywhere_ until you tell me what we're running from!" I insisted. "And why would you want to help me, anyway?"

His electric green eyes jumped anxiously to a spot somewhere above and behind me, but before I could look at what was making him so nervous, he spoke. "Listen to me, Relle. No matter what quarrel there is between us, ghosts _always_ close ranks when a witch is nearby. We need to escape to the Ghost Zone _right away!_ "

"A _what?_ " Okay, now I was even more confused than before. "You're not making any sense, Batron."

"As I have said before, we will discuss this in greater depth on the other side of the portal," he said, reaching a hand down for me to take. I didn't accept it right away, instead choosing to look back to try and see whatever it was-- a _witch? Really?_ \-- that was chasing us. I couldn't see anything at all! Maybe it was invisible, and maybe he was lying to me, but I couldn't tell at this point. Maybe those explosions were just from a gadget of his, and he was trying to lure me into the Ghost Zone for an ambush. 

I shook my head and stepped back from his offered hand. "No, I-- _Aah!_ " 

That " _Aah!_ " was because another explosion struck me right in the back, on top of my left shoulder blade. I clutched at the smoking spot on my silk slip and groaned, then spun to look again. Still, nothing! 

"The witch is closing in on us! We need to leave, _now!_ " Lord Batron yelled, reaching again for me. I batted his hand away with my free hand and backed up, shaking my head. 

"No, you go, but I can't go with you," I said through grit teeth. "It'll be fine, alright? I'll take care of this 'witch' or whatever it is, if it's even real."

"You cannot fight a witch, Relle," he said earnestly. "It is suicide, even for a ghost!" 

Another explosion hit my tile floor and shattered them, spurring Lord Batron to shake his head and dive into the water without another moment's hesitation. I didn't stick around to watch him go; I had other matters to deal with. By then, my 'bathroom break' was definitely taking longer than it should have, and Mrs. Bosch was undoubtedly getting suspicious. The burn on my shoulder blade hurt a lot more than most of the ghosts' attacks when they land, too. 

"Oh, forget this!" I groaned before turning invisible and dashing away. If I couldn't see my attacker, then I couldn't exactly fight back, and there was no point getting myself in even more trouble. 'What the hell is going on? _Witches?_ This can't be real...'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everybody! I'm so sorry this took so long to come out. Between having no internet for almost two whole weeks out of my winter break and working _all the time_ , I had almost no opportunities to sit down and just write stuff. So, here's an extra long chapter to try and make up for that.
> 
> Of course, now that school has started up again, I won't have much time to write this anyway. Updates will likely be few and far between, but I hope you won't forget this story! I know I won't because I _really_ want to see this all the way to the end. 
> 
> Also, Jordy is a quick OC from ariloveshetalia on wattpad :D Thank you for all you do for this series, Ari!
> 
> Please leave comments and kudos while you're here, okay? WUVS!


	4. Chapter 4

'What the hell was all that about?' ran through Camry's head as she phased through a window in one of the dance studios and resolved to invisibly going the long way back to the bathroom. Despite her frequent practice sessions to hone her ghostly abilities, being able to turn intangible with confidence and at will still eluded her, so she was in the habit of only going through windows so she could see where she would end up. It was a pain in the ass, but at that point in her skill levels it was all she could do just to deal with it. 

The halls were a little noisier than when she left, Camry noticed as she stepped quietly toward the bathroom and poked an intangible head through the door to see if the coast was clear. Only one girl from the etiquette class was there, and she was finishing up with washing her hands. Camry pulled back and waited for her to open the door and leave before darting in and locking a stall behind herself. From there, it was a simple matter to switch back to human form and check herself over quickly for anything indicative to hide. 

She went to reach for the stall door's handle and sucked in a sharp breath as a burning sting shot up her spine. "What the hell?" Camry hissed, wrenching the door open and facing her back toward a mirror. Her right hand pulled down the neck of her shirt and revealed an angry red-purple blotch, roughly the size of a baseball, exactly where that explosion had hit her just a few minutes ago. Eyes wide and jaw clenched, Camry let her shirt spring back into place and grimaced at the feeling of fabric rubbing over her injury. 'I'm almost never injured in human form as a result of what I do in my ghost form...' she thought, placing the fingers of one hand over her closed mouth pensively. 'And it's never this bad, either! What in the world would change that all of a sudden?'

The door to the restroom opened suddenly, sending a spark of shock throughout Camry's body and making her stiffen reflexively. Her eyes darted over to look at who it was, and her heart immediately sank with dread. 'Oh, crap.'

 

 

"Ugh," the young man groaned with an immature roll of his eyes as he turned away from the mirror. As soon as he took his eyes off of it, the image of Bailey Lake's surface disappeared and properly showed his reflection once more; the incantation had run its course. "They _both_ got away..."

Hand on his chin and other hand supporting his elbow, he frowned at his reflection and narrowed his fascinating eyes. "Something doesn't feel right about her... Why does her energy signature differ so much from any other ghost?" His intuition told him that figuring out this puzzle would be key in destroying her once and for all. 

Even so, he'd managed to conjure and land a decent enough hit on her. The memory of her flinch brought a faint smirk to his lips. It fell away when the door opened without warning and admitted a stout woman with rich dirt under her fingernails and a remarkably birdlike stare. The charm in the boy's hair jingled ever so softly as he swiveled around to face her. 

"So, you are done with the mirror?" she assumed, her voice gravelly but could have once been something much more pleasant to listen to. 

"I am, Fan Liu," he answered respectfully. "I managed to conjure a few attack spells with it, but the two ghosts escaped anyway."

"You will have more opportunities to practice, Endellion," she assured him as she made her way to the other side of the room, where a number of menacing items lay strewn about on a couple of workbenches pressed side by side. Jars of grave soil, bundles of sticks and bones, dried plants tied up with string, and a box of chocolate were the most noticeable items on display. Her own array of charms on her wrists, ankles, neck, and waist tinkled hollowly on her way past and sat down on a cushioned stool. "We will always have enemies to eliminate, as surely as people live and die in this world."

"But, Fan Liu, I'm confused about a ghost in particular," the boy, Endellion, persisted as he walked over to stand next to her at the table. He talked as she picked up and examined the clean and not-so-clean bones of various specimens, human included. "She doesn't exhibit some of the abilities most other ghosts have, and every time I try to read her I come up with confusing, jumbled feelings-- emotions other than what ghosts feel. What do you think that means?"

Fan Liu pressed her lips into a thin line as she stared down the length of a human ulna and felt its edges with expert precision. "You are still young and fresh in your abilities. It will take many more years for you to fully understand how to separate different emotions from an undead psyche. I wasn't confident in my own abilities as a graveyard witch until I was in my late twenties, after all." 

She set the bone down and pivoted her seat to better look at him. For added measure, the sallow-faced Chinese woman took both of his hands in both of hers; he didn't seem to mind the grave soil leaving streaks on his tan skin. "You are certainly a talented witch, Endellion, and you will do great things for this coven and our clan as a whole. I do not want to see you tear yourself to pieces over this particular ghost, though. It is very disturbing, and I will see what I can do to find out more about it. For now, concentrate on what you can do to hone your own powers, and follow your nose."

That last remark brought a faint smile to Endellion's face, though they both knew how much he disliked dealing with his heightened sense. Every witch had a sense that was stronger than all the others since birth; whether it helped or hindered their lives was determined by a number of factors. It seemed Endellion had been saddled with a rather restricting inability to stand strong odors of almost any sort, and it made potion-making difficult if it involved any particularly pungent ingredients. 

He nodded mutely and took back his hands to shove them into his pockets. "Can I look through your library for anything that might help me, Fan Liu?" 

She nodded. "You may, but you know to stay away from the ones in red bookcases."

"I promise," Endellion vowed, raising one hand in salute. He was just about to turn the doorknob and leave when the coven leader spoke up again, stopping him in his tracks. 

"Don't you have a test tomorrow? Have you been studying for it?" 

He snorted in laughter and looked back at her. "Oh, come on, Fan Liu. You know I don't need to worry about tests. Nobody has a better memory than mine." On that note, he shut the door behind himself and went on his way, leaving Fan Liu to continue her research in piece. 

Of course, once out of the same room as her, his expression fell back into determination. 'I'll get to the bottom of this ghost story, no matter what.'

 

 

"I've got half a mind to ban you from the cotillion altogether!" 

The shout echoed from down the hall and caused Saoirse to look up from her phone. Just as she had been about to reply to Dude's text, her attention diverted to the direction of the ladies restroom. Its door had been pushed open by a downtrodden Camry, who was being followed by a lecturing and furious Mrs. Bosch. The short girl winced when the teacher grabbed her upper arm to lead her back in Saoirse's direction. 

"Don't think I won't call your parents and tell them about you skipping this class, also!" Mrs. Bosch threatened, and Camry's eyes widened while her jaw dropped. 

"No, you don't understand! I was--!" she started to protest, but immediately cut herself off before any sensitive information could have been said. 

"You were hiding in the restroom until class ended, _that's_ what," Mrs. Bosch supplied, her grip tightening on Camry's arm. "There's always a girl like you in class, _every single year_. Don't think I don't know how to deal with this kind of behavior, young lady." 

Sharp high-heeled footsteps rapidly approached from the other side of the hall, closer to where Saoirse stood near the wall and debated what to do. From what she could glean from the situation, Camry looked to be in pain and too scared to come up with a plausible excuse for her disappearance. Those footsteps hardly registered in the Pakistani girl's mind until the owner breezed by and revealed herself to be Mrs. Mahadeo, who had come to pick up both girls. Before Saoirse could say anything to her mother, Eleanor had drawn near enough to the altercation to make her presence known.

"Excuse me, but would you mind telling me what's going on here?" she began gently with an air of motherly sweetness. 

'Mum!' Camry thought as her heart skipped a beat. If Mrs. Bosch told her what had happened, then Mum would be sure to tell Camry's parents about this and get her in even more trouble! If they started asking the right questions... would she be able to keep up the charade any longer?

"Are you her mother?" Mrs. Bosch asked. Some of the anger melted away from her expression to be replaced with cool professionalism.

Eleanor jabbed a thumb back over her shoulder to indicate Saoirse, who was just a few paces behind. "I'm actually her mother, but I'm here to pick up both of them. What's going on here?"

As Mrs. Bosch shot Camry a heated look, she replied with, "Young Miss Camry, here, was hiding out in the restroom until class was over to avoid her etiquette lessons. I'm _sorely_ tempted to kick her out of the class altogether and ban her from the cotillion, which seems to be _exactly_ what she wants, considering her disruptive behavior in class today."

The Irish woman's eyebrows lifted ever so slightly in faint surprise, but then she smiled and shook her head in answer to that. "That won't be necessary, I assure you. I texted Camry while she must have been in the restroom and asked her to come help me with carrying a few heavy things. She remembered she didn't wash her hands afterwards and went back up to do just that. It did take a bit longer than I expected, and I certainly didn't expect her to come help me right away, so perhaps the fault lies with me." 

The delivery of the lie was so flawless, so without hesitation, that it was all Saoirse and Camry could do not to let their jaws hit the floor. Mrs. Bosch's brow furrowed as she mulled the explanation over, but after a few seconds she let out a breath and let go of Camry's arm, much to her relief. "Alright, I suppose that explains it. But you," she added with emphasis in Camry's direction, "had better not use any sort of excuse to skip class again. We only have a week and a half to prepare you, and you have a lot to learn. Am I clear?"

The pale-faced girl nodded rapidly and, as more of an afterthought, squeaked out a "Yes, Ma'am," before hurrying over to Eleanor and Saoirse's side. Though she wasn't really one for PDA, Saoirse didn't hesitate to put an arm around her girlfriend's shoulders. It caused her to wince noticeably, though neither adult was looking right then as Eleanor made it a point to fill Mrs. Bosch in on some of Camry's behavioral tendencies. 

"Threatening her won't help her learn anything," Eleanor was saying, and while it looked as if the instructor wanted to tell her not to lecture her on her own teaching methods, she took it in stride and quickly bade the group farewell to get out of the situation as soon as possible.

"What's the matter?" Saoirse whispered in the meantime, but Camry shook her head and motioned that she would explain later. They looked up in unison when Eleanor spun around and put her hands on her hips. The expression she wore was, well, interesting: relief, stern, worried, and even a little bit guilty. "Mum... what was _that?_ "

"Well, let's just say that I don't appreciate how I saw her treating my second daughter," was her elusive answer that made Camry beam with love at the endearment. "Although..." Uh oh. "I have something I want to talk to you two about when we get to the car. Do you have all of your stuff?"

Saoirse silently replied with a finger pointed at the spot where she'd been leaning in wait. Two duffel bags sat there beside a pair of backpacks, full of their day clothes and school supplies. She walked over and scooped them both up by their straps, then passed Camry's to her. As she fitted the strap over her shoulder, Camry struggled to suppress a flinch as the motion pulled on the smoldering pain resting firmly over her scapula. Once ready to go, the trio of women exited the building and hopped into the line waiting to board a sky lift that would take them back down to the earth's surface. 

Oh, did I forget to mention that the studio rested on a floating acre? 

The lift car they boarded was crammed near to capacity with plenty of other people, including a few of the etiquette class's students. As Mrs. Mahadeo, Saoirse, and Camry fit themselves in between passengers, the shortest of the three found herself bumping elbows with a familiar, larger girl her age. At the unexpected contact, Jordy pulled her headphones off her ears and offered a small smile to the flustered Camry. 

"Hey, thank you for stepping up and distracting Mrs. Bosch earlier," she said in a soft tone. The gratitude made Camry's eyebrows rise a little. "She was being so mean..."

"Y-Yeah, her comments just got me so mad that I didn't really even think of what I was doing," Camry agreed before an awkward little laugh. "But I think I've made her an enemy, truth be told."

"Well... if I can gather the courage to stand up to her, I'll try to stick up for you, too," Jordy promised. 

Camry, not knowing what else to do, beamed up at her and gave her a thumbs-up. Jordy nodded to accept the gesture and stuck her headphones back on to return to the universe of her own mind. Meanwhile, Camry turned back to look at Saoirse pressed against her arm and duffel bag. She leaned down a little to whisper in her girlfriend's ear. 

"Hey, are you okay? You're flinching a lot," Saoirse observed. 

"I'll show you when we get to your house," Camry whispered in answer. "My shoulder... I think something's wrong with it."

The lift ride ended with a barely noticeable bump and lurch, and the doors slid apart to let the passengers disembark. Mrs. Mahadeo's sleek car was parked near the station entrance, so it was a simple task to find it and pile everyone and everything inside. Before she turned the key in the hole to start it, though, Eleanor took a moment to look back at the two teens buckling their seatbelts. "Girls, I just want you two to know that..."

She tapered off suddenly, as if she was searching for the right words. Saoirse and Camry looked at her intently, waiting for whatever she wanted to tell them. Finally, Eleanor sighed and shook her head minutely. "Just promise me you'll tell me right away if Mrs. Bosch is ever like that to either of you again. I'm sure Sadie would understand you being pulled out if you're not being treated with respect in there, Camry, and there is no way I'm going to let either of you put up with bullying."

"Thanks, Mum," Camry answered with a grateful smile. "I think I'll try to stay, though, in case she's like that to the other girls, too."

"Even so, you tell me right away, alright?" Eleanor started the car after hearing a harmony of yesses from the back seat. "Good. So, other than that, how were your days today, girls?"

 

 

'No reply... how late is their class supposed to go, anyway?' Dude wondered as he checked his phone and saw that his text had been read but not answered. Either way, he shrugged it off and shouldered his way through the front door of his small family's apartment. He set his bag down gently to the side of the foyer and popped his sore back before wandering down to the bedroom he and his twin sister share. A curtain had been set up down the middle to give them each some privacy, which was about the best their family could afford when a three-bedroom apartment was too far out of their budget. Nevertheless, Dude didn't mind it all that much. 

Sprawled out on her twin bed was Ariadna, her socked feet locked into place in the air and an open textbook under her cheek as she snoozed. Dude laughed under his breath at the sight and, moving gently to hopefully not disturb her, put her cold feet back down on the bed so they wouldn't be cut off from blood circulation. Saving the book from the threat of a drool flood was another matter, though, and Dude had to work ever so slowly to ease it out from under her head without tearing the pages. It really was a miracle Ariadna didn't wake up through it all; she must have been too exhausted to be bothered by any of it.

After covering his sister with a thin blanket, Dude pulled the curtain closed and cleared off his own bed so he would have a place to study for the math test tomorrow afternoon. Just after he dragged his heavy pack into his room, the front door opened and closed: Mamá was home already?

Putting his homework on hold, Dude breezed out of his shared room and met his mother in the kitchen, a welcoming smile on his face. "Hi, Mamá. You're home early," he said in perfect Spanish, as was the tendency in their household. 

"The store had too many people working at once, so I decided to come home a little early and make dinner," she answered as she shed her coat and threw it over the back of a dining room chair absentmindedly. "Where's Ari?"

"She's sleeping," he said, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed in front of him. "I managed to the save the textbook she almost drooled on, at least."

"Good. Those are _way_ too expensive to replace," Maria Hinojosa lamented. "Mijo, do you have very much homework tonight? I could use your help with making the tortillas." 

"Sure, Mamá," Dude agreed. Never mind that he did, as a matter of fact, have quite a bit of studying to do. Just the weary look on his overworked mother's face was enough to make him move the studying into a lower priority tier of importance and jump into cooking dinner with her without hesitation.

What really made it all worth it was the meal they got to share and the fact that it tasted good in the end. After he and Ari finished washing the dishes and putting the leftovers away, Dude returned to his room to get cracking on studying, as much as he wished he didn't have to. With textbooks spread out across his covers and notebooks stacked up in his lap, Dude got to sorting through them all and figuring out what he needed to study for the most. Priority number one: math. With the test being _tomorrow_ , he needed to cram ASAP. 

He flipped open his notes and found a loose leaf of paper written on in another person's hand. The sight made him raise his pierced eyebrow until he remembered that Kordelle had lent him some of his notes. The weird little swirls and doodles were what made him remember where he had gotten the paper from. He opened the textbook to the corresponding pages and got out a new sheet of paper for practicing the equations, then turned to the borrowed notes. 

Maybe it was just the fact that he was tired, or maybe the less than optimum lighting in his side of the room, but it almost looked like the doodles were waving at him a little bit in his periphery vision. Dude squeezed his eyes shut tight for a few seconds and opened them again; there, the wiggling was gone. 'I'm just tired' he sighed, letting out a deep breath. "Okay. Let's do this."

 

"Pencils down, everyone," the teacher announced with a sigh of what could easily have been taken for relief. It was the end of the day, after all, and that meant spring break was one day closer. Who could blame her for being glad a break was coming up? All of the students eagerly shared the sentiment. 

As Dude rested his pencil beside his test on the desk, he couldn't stop staring at the answers he had churned out for each question. Was it possible? Had he... actually done them right? A sharp tap on his shoulder startled him out of his reverie and prompted him to take the tests being passed forward to the front of the room. His own test went down on top of them, and he watched it make its journey into the teacher's weary hands. 

"I'll be posting grades over the break, so keep an eye out for that if you want to know what you got before we return to class. Have a great afternoon, everyone." 

Dude barely heard her. Only another physical touch on his shoulder brought him back to reality. He looked up and over to see Kordelle smiling hopefully at him. "How do you think you did, Dude?"

"I... I think I actually got most of them _right_ ," he answered softly, in awe. "How the hell did that suddenly become to easy to figure out?"

"You studied with my notes last night, right?" Kordelle pressed, and Dude nodded emphatically as he rose from his seat. 

"Yeah, 'course I did!" He scooped up his backpack by one strap and casually slung it over one shoulder. "You want 'em back now? Wait, how did you study without them? Do you think you did alright?" 

Kordelle waved a flippant hand at that. "Don't worry about it, I studied for this chapter a while back. But hey, I was hoping I could talk to you about something, if that's cool."

Dude shrugged at that nonchalantly. "Sure thing. What's up?"

"I'll tell you outside." 

Interesting choice... Dude raised his pierced eyebrow at that but followed him nevertheless. Whatever it was that Kordelle wanted to tell him had Dude intrigued, so there was little chance he wouldn't go along with the charade. The pair somehow navigated the crowded halls as if by magic and found themselves near the back of the school grounds, where Kordelle pulled aside a nondescript panel in the stained brick wall to reveal plastic bags of... stuff. Some of them looked like plant matter, but others were definitely more rock-like and in different colors. 

" _Dude_ ," Dude said sharply. "Drugs, really? No thanks, I--"

"No, they're not _drugs_ ," Kordelle cut him off. "Listen, this is gonna sound weird, alright? So I just need you to have an open mind about what I'm gonna tell you."

At that, Dude crossed his arms and nodded. The way his stance was, with one foot pointed away from the conversation, subtly signified his preparation to leave at a moment's notice. Kordelle noticed but said nothing; it wasn't like he couldn't understand where Dude's views were coming from. This entire situation was definitely shady on a superficial basis. 

"So... the notes I let you borrow," Kordelle began hesitantly, as if he wasn't entirely sure how to start. "Did you see little doodles around the borders?" 

Dude nodded again, remaining silent and obviously skeptical of where this topic was going.

"Okay, good. That proves it."

"Proves _what_ , exactly?" he asked, shifting his posture ever so slightly. He was certainly uncomfortable, Kordelle noticed. 

"That you're like me," the Australian boy blurted out. "You're a witch, like me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PLOT TWIST!! *explosions and finger guns*
> 
> I am SO sorry I haven't been posting lately. School, work, being sick, and a lack of motivation have all played big parts in that, but I'm fighting to work through all of that and try to be a little more frequent in my updating. Don't worry, I definitely won't be giving this story up any time soon! 
> 
> I'll see you all in the next chapter, I hope! Thank you for all your support of this series, and I hope you'll continue to show it as I continue. See you later!! À bientôt!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I haven't forgotten about this story! It just somehow slipped my mind that I needed to actually _post_ this chapter, so here we are. At least that means you get a double update! Huzzah!

Yesterday afternoon~

The instant Saoirse's bedroom door closed behind her, she tossed her duffel bag aside and turned her eyes on Camry, who clutched her left shoulder tightly and grit her teeth as she dropped her own bag onto the carpet. "Okay, _what_ the heck is going on?" she insisted, worry lifting her tone and pitch. "What happened to you in that fight?"

"It was so weird, Seersh," Camry answered while carefully dragging down the neck of her shirt to reveal the top of her injury. "I... I got hit by something I couldn't see, and the injury crossed over with me. _Rrgh_ \--!" she groaned, blinking back tears. How in the world had it gotten even _more_ painful? 

In contrast to Camry's perpetually warm skin, Saoirse's cooler hands were a blessing as they flitted around the injury nervously. "Oh, wow. _That's_ an ugly color."

"Forget the color-- how in the world am I injured, too?" Camry reiterated as she allowed herself to be led into the private bathroom adjacent to Saoirse's bedroom. "I mean, whatever happens to me as Relle is never this severe as Camry, y'know?" Like clockwork, she slowly shed her shirt and sat on the toilet lid with her back to Saoirse. 

Saoirse nodded along while wetting the corner of a hand towel. "As far as we've seen, that's true."

"Although... Batron was telling me something weird as we were running from these invisible explosions, or whatever they were." A pensive frown on her face was interrupted with a fierce grimace the second Saoirse pressed the towel to the welt. " _Ahh_ \--!"

"Keep talking to me," Saoirse coached, though she let up on her ministrations a little to let Camry suck in a more prepared breath. "What was Batron telling you?"

"S-Something about... I dunno, _witches?_ It all sounded so made up, but-- _ow!_ \-- th-the look on his face and the way he was talking so fast didn't seem fake to me." 

"Did you say 'witches?'" Saoirse asked. Camry's eyes were closed to help her focus on talking through the pain, so she only knew a first aid kit was being opened by the sound of a cupboard opening and the latch popping open. 

Cam hummed an affirmative. "It all happened so fast that I got really disoriented and couldn't process what was going on at first. It was... strange. Stranger than usual."

"That's definitely saying something," Seersh commented with the slightest tone of dark mirth in her voice. "So, now we have to figure out how to deal with these 'witches' as well as your _ghostly_ enemies." 

The thought of taking on any more layers of complication in daily life pulled an agonized groan from the blonde half-ghost; Saoirse immediately stopped dabbing antiseptic cream on the wound because she thought it was hurting her. "Oh, sorry," Camry apologized sheepishly. "You're not hurting me anymore than this wound already is." 

"Maybe save the wailing and gnashing of teeth for after I'm done patching you up," Saoirse advised as she continued. Camry simply nodded at that and went back to gritting her teeth. 

When the last of the medical tape was patted on to adhere the gauze pad to her skin, Camry pulled her shirt back on one arm at a time and turned around to watch Saoirse pack up the remaining supplies. "From what I can tell, you didn't really bleed at all, but whatever hit you burned you pretty bad."

"I thought I couldn't really _get _burned, what with my powers being what they are," Cam thought out loud, a pensive frown pulling at the corners of her lips. "I wonder if Batron was right..." Even as caught up in thought as she was, Camry didn't hesitate to rise to her feet and plant a smooch on Saoirse's cheek as wordless thanks for patching her up. Saoirse leaned into it automatically and smiled briefly at the contact, pausing in putting everything away.__

__"What did he say?" Saoirse asked in a mixture of curiosity and dread. She latched the med kit's lid firmly and looked over to meet her girlfriend's iolite eyes._ _

__"That... fighting a witch is suicide?"_ _

__

__

__Back to the present~_ _

__"You're a witch, like me."_ _

__Given the other boy's high energy capacity, Kordelle almost expected Dude to shout in confusion or maybe even just leave. However, neither of those things happened. Instead, Dude's raised eyebrow lifted even higher and his features narrowed in a sort of, "What the hell am I hearing right now?" expression. 'Good, then I can at least explain myself' Kordelle thought hopefully._ _

__"Really, it's true," he continued, holding out a page of notes just like the one he had loaned to Dude the day before. "You can see the runes I wrote on this-- only witches can see them. I should know because I invented them."_ _

__The look on Dude's face had yet to change into anything more akin to understanding. "Huh?" Then he gasped; "When did you get those out of my backpack?"_ _

__"I didn't. These are just notes from another class," Kordelle explained. "But I write these runes on _all_ of my notes to help me study. They amplify brain power and promote concentration."_ _

__"Okay, so-- wait a second. You _swear_ you're not pulling my leg?" Dude asked, his face the epitome of serious. Kordelle nodded emphatically and turned around to reach into the stash hole in the wall. "What're you doing?"_ _

__"I'm gonna prove it to you," the Australian boy said resolutely. "Where is it...? Ah-ha, found it." When he spun back around to face Dude, Kordelle held out a thin paperback book wrapped in a protective plastic covering. He peeled it away with ease and stuffed the covering in a jacket pocket before opening the book. "This has the answers to a lot of questions about witches. Go ahead, ask me anything."_ _

__"Uh, okay, how about: What makes you so sure I'm a 'witch' like you?" Dude inquired with more than a little skepticism in his tone._ _

__"That's an easy one. Your eyes are what give it away," Kordelle answered with confidence. "You have some form of opal eyes, and a witch's power is known as 'opalescence.'" He tapped the side of his head, right next to his own left eye. "Australian Boulder Opal, remember?"_ _

__Dude was suddenly aware of how much he was blinking, mostly out of perplexity. "Oh-kay...?"_ _

__'This _still_ sounds like a huge prank.'_ _

__"Look, I know it's a lot to take in and _really_ confusing, but I'm not trying to play a trick on you." The way Kordelle said it was almost as if he knew that was exactly what Dude still suspected. Actually, it was almost as if Kordelle could read his mind. "Look, I can prove it beyond a doubt. Think of a number, any number at all, and I'll tell you exactly what it is." _ _

__Dude let out a sigh and cast his eyes toward the blue sky above as he mulled it over. "Okay, got it."_ _

__"Oh, nice job making it hard to guess," Kordelle commented almost _immediately_. "47.216, right?"_ _

__Cue Dude's eyes widening as much as they could. "Did-- Did you just _read my mind?_ " _ _

__"You bet I did," he said with a pleased smile on his face. "Think of another number if you're not convinced."_ _

__There was another pause between them, and then Kordelle's eyebrows furrowed. "Alabama isn't a number."_ _

__"Just checking," Dude laughed. "Oh my god, that's amazing! You're actually reading my mind! Although... that's kind of weird, too, isn't it?"_ _

__"I promise it won't become a regular thing," Kordelle chuckled. "I'm a witch with a specialization in all things mental. I can read minds, I've studied all sorts of psychology to help me understand the things I pick up from other people, and right now I'm learning how to work with different emotions."_ _

__"So, you're like a super shrink," Dude summed up._ _

__Kordelle sputtered with suppressed laughter and shook his head. "Maybe just a little, but not really. My conduit is my sense of smell, too. We could figure out what your conduit is right now, in fact."_ _

__"My what now?"_ _

__Kordelle didn't answer that right away, instead choosing to flip through the thin book and find a specific page. It wasn't that he didn't know what he was talking about; rather, the guide was more or less there to help him explain everything as clearly as possible. "Every witch has two things: a specialization and a conduit. The specialization is the area of magic that comes most naturally to them. The conduit is a heightened version of one of the five senses; its purpose is to focus the specialization and make it stronger. That means that if I can smell someone, and it's really not hard to smell people in almost any sort of situation, I have a better grasp on what they're thinking." He shut the book and held it spine-down in one hand. "I know that sounds super weird, but--"_ _

__"Oh, is that why you always have that bandana around your neck?" Dude interrupted without really thinking about it. He also pointed an index finger at it to make his point. "I don't think I've ever seen you without it."_ _

__"That's exactly why I wear it," Kordelle confirmed. "The other students always wear too much body spray, and if I walk into a cloud of too much scent I get a migraine. I'm also _terrible_ at potion-making since it's always too much sensory input." _ _

__Dude nodded, a hand on his chin. "Hmm, makes sense. Then, what's _my_ conduit if I really am a witch?" _ _

__"That's what all these things are for," he said with a gesture back to the stash. Kordelle got to work digging through the different bags for the things he needed, talking as he did so. His voice echoed a little bit into the hole. "I've been keeping all of this here in case I ever ran into another witch at school, so I'm glad I didn't take it all home a few weeks back... Okay."_ _

__Arms full of supplies, Kordelle set every item down one by one in a slightly curved line between himself and Dude. "This is easy, so don't be nervous. We just have to test your senses one by one until we figure out which one is the conduit."_ _

__"Wouldn't it be obvious, though?" Dude asked. "I mean, wouldn't I have noticed if a sense was stronger than other people's by now?"_ _

__"Not necessarily," was the answer he got while Kordelle set to unwrapping the first item. "It's not like you can see through another person's eyes, or taste exactly what someone else tastes even when you both eat the same thing. Everyone's different, right? We all perceive the world around us in different ways."_ _

__"Oh, gotcha," Dude agreed. "What's first?"_ _

__The first item was an ordinary leaf, as it turned out. Kordelle held it out for Dude to take before launching into the instructions. "Look at this leaf very closely and tell me what you see."_ _

__Dude's eyes narrowed at the greenery as his lips settled into a determined frown. "Uhm... I see... veins? Sort of? It's hard to tell, but it looks almost entirely smooth to me."_ _

__"Huh. Okay, so it's probably not sight," Kordelle surmised, taking back the leaf and wrapping it up again. "Maybe this one will be it. Hold out your hand." The next item was a bottle with a screwed-on lid. Inside was a cloudy, off-white liquid that sloshed thickly against the walls of its container. "Don't open that until I'm at least, like, _fifty_ feet away."_ _

__"What? Why?" Dude asked quickly. "Is it dangerous or something?"_ _

__"None of this is dangerous," Kordelle assured him. "It's the test for olfactory conduits, and I can't _stand_ the smell of that potion." He turned and started to walk along the length of the wall, but didn't stop until they would have to shout at one another to be heard. "Okay! Go ahead!"_ _

__Dude unscrewed the cap and flinched reflexively only to slowly realize he couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary. The wind still smelled like spring rain, the fields behind the school still smelled like freshly cut grass, and the potion was all but odorless. Just to be sure, he put the bottle right under his nose and sucked in a deep whiff only to turn up with nothing. He waved to Kordelle and shook his head 'no.' Kordelle didn't start the journey back over until the lid was firmly reattached to the bottle._ _

__"Well, I think I expected as much," was Kordelle's first comment when he was back in earshot. His nose wrinkled in distaste at the last traces lingering on the air but made no mention of it. "And I think we can also rule out auditory conduits since I slammed my books down on the table yesterday and you barely reacted."_ _

__"That's what that was all about?" Dude asked with slight mirth in his tone. "So, you've been suspecting this for a while now."_ _

__"Ever since I saw your eyes," he said. "Okay, then this leaves us with two options: taste and touch. Those two are the rarest of the five conduits, as a matter of fact. What do you want to try first?"_ _

__Since the idea of putting something foreign in his mouth wasn't all too appealing, Dude opted for touch vehemently. Kordelle's response was to tell him, "Close your eyes and hold out your hands. I'm going to put something in them, and you're going to tell me what you feel." Dude nodded and did as he was told, his heart rate jumping a little at the suspense._ _

__What he felt suddenly in his hands was surprisingly heavy, round, and pitted. He turned it around and over experimentally, getting a better mental image of whatever he was holding. "It's... really rough. Is it a rock?"_ _

__"What else do you feel?" Kordelle prompted rather than answering the question. By his voice, it was easy to tell that he was getting excited to hear more from the other boy._ _

__"I think... there's a crack somewhere on here. It's running over the surface." To make his point, Dude traced the spidery lines with his index finger and had to turn the round object over to follow it all the way to the end. "Can I open my eyes now?"_ _

__"Go ahead," Kordelle said, a hint of unbridled delight in his tone._ _

__When he opened his eyes, Dude found a smooth ball of white marble in his hands. Its outward appearance was of perfection even when the light from the sun reflected off its surface. His eyebrows rose in surprise, and Dude looked rapidly between the marble and Kordelle's beaming smile. "Wait, huh? It's smooth? It doesn't feel smooth at all to me!"_ _

__"Exactly," Kordelle agreed. He had unwrapped a magnifying glass and held it above the spot where the crack Dude had described ended. "See that?"_ _

__"... No?"_ _

__"Look closer."_ _

__Dude squinted through the magnifying glass and turned the orb a bit to get a better view. Wait a second... There! Against the pale rock stood out a tiny, barely darker seam so small that the magnifying glass barely revealed its existence. "I _felt_ that?" Dude gasped, ripping his eyes away from the sight to stare at Kordelle with a flabbergasted look. _ _

__Kordelle grinned and nodded emphatically. "Your conduit is touch! You believe me now, don't you?"_ _

__"I... Yeah, man, of course," he answered. His slightly out of breath pitch made it clear that he was definitely being blown away by this revelation. "Oh my _god_...! So, what happens next?" _ _

__Kordelle took a step back and bent down to start picking up the items; Dude jumped in to help without hesitation and listened as the other witch talked. "I can't figure out your specialization on my own, unfortunately, but I know a few other witches that might be able to. We can head over and see who's around right now, actually."_ _

__"I have _so_ many questions," Dude chimed in excitedly as he stashed things back inside the hidey hole. "Are you in a coven? Is that the right word for it? What all do we do? What all _can_ we do? Do I get a wand or is that not something--?"_ _

__" _Whoa_ , whoa, Dude, mate," Kordelle interrupted him gently. "Two things: slow down, and don't bring up _anything_ Harry Potter in front of the other witches. It's... a touchy subject." _ _

__"Oh, sorry," Dude laughed good-naturedly. During a pause in asking questions, he watched Kordelle begin to wrap up the thin book and quickly put a staying hand out to grab the other boy's attention. "Hey-- Could I maybe borrow that book? For just, like, a night or two?"_ _

__"Well..." Kordelle mumbled, turning the book over to look at the nondescript cover. "That's sort of something else I should probably mention. You've gotta keep witchkind a secret from people, Dude. It's too dangerous to let out, y'know? It's not the 1600s anymore, but the Salem Trials are a good example of what could still happen if we're not careful." The expression on his face, of hard worry lines and tight lips, did little to hide how serious of a matter this was to him and his people. "We should probably keep this hidden, just in case."_ _

__Dude figuratively took a step back and mulled it over for a hot second. "Hey, man, I wouldn't want to spill something this serious to anybody else. It's not that big a deal if you don't want me to take the book home. Honest. Besides, aren't we gonna go learn more stuff about witches anyway?" He beamed big and bright to show how eager he was to get started. "My afternoon's free, so let's get going!"_ _

__The book went back into its plastic wrapping and was stowed away within the hole in the wall, which was then sealed up neatly with a protective spell for good measure. When Kordelle finished the simple incantation, he turned back to Dude and nodded. "Yeah, let's get going."_ _

__

__

__"Can you promise me you'll try to rein it in today, Cam?" Saoirse asked somewhat tiredly as she placed her hands on her lower spine and leaned backwards to pop her sore muscles. Carrying a heavy backpack all day only to switch it out for a heavy duffel bag was anything but easy on a student, after all. "I don't like her any more than you do, but you're on such thin ice already."_ _

__Camry let out a sigh and repositioned the strap of her own duffel hanging off her shoulder. It felt awkward to rest it on her right shoulder, but it was out of the question to switch sides and press it up against her injury, which had barely healed overnight. Her other hand was busy holding a hand rail in the lift car that was currently carrying them up to the floating acre where the studio stood. "I'll try, but... It's just so hard to not get mad when she treats us all so harshly."_ _

__Her knuckles were a stark shade of white, even against her extremely pale usual complexion. "It's a good thing she believed Mum yesterday."_ _

__"Yeah... That was so _weird_ ," Saoirse commented, a thoughtful frown on her face. "She never covered for us like that before. Did you get the feeling that something was off with her in the car, too?"_ _

__"I-- Yeah, I _did!_ You mean I wasn't the only one who thought that?" Cam asked, iolite eyes wide. "She _definitely_ had something else on her mind. I wonder what it could've been..."_ _

__Of course, it was never a good idea to get too involved in a conversation of secret subjects while in public, so they veered into a more menial topic as the lift came to a stop at the station and allowed its passengers to disembark. On their way up the stairs to the studio's front doors, they fell into step alongside Jordy and greeted her with a dreading, false optimism she shared with the two of them._ _

__At the exact same time they pushed open the doors to their studio, Kordelle pushed open the front door of his home and walked in ahead of Dude, letting the other boy follow him in. A long hallway stretched out directly in front of them and ended in what looked to be the kitchen... if the kitchen was also a greenhouse of some sort. After only a few seconds of being inside, Dude found himself tugging at the collar of his t-shirt in the hopes that it would cool off his neck a little. Still, he followed Kordelle's example and shed his jacket and shoes at the door before going in further._ _

__"So, this is where I live," Kordelle began eagerly with a wave of his hand to indicate the entire house. "It's communal living for me and the other witches in our coven, but we come and go a lot. We're a really small coven, but I like it better that way. Anyway, I'll show you my room first."_ _

__Dude was uncharacteristically silent, his attention flicking from one thing to another rapidly in a weak attempt to take everything in all too quickly. He nodded at the suggestion and followed Kordelle up a flight of stairs that began just short of the jungle-kitchen. So far, the only thing he had asked was, "Is anyone else home right now?"_ _

__"Allie might be practicing spells in her room, and I think Fan Liu's in the library, but who knows about the rest of them," Kordelle answered, shrugging nonchalantly. "It's fine. Fan Liu's the one we want to talk to, anyway."_ _

__The sunlight couldn't pierce through the thick black curtains hanging over every window; Dude couldn't help but blink over and over as he tried to make out the details of his new environment. Every table-- hall, dining, coffee-- in sight was absolutely _covered_ with objects of all sorts and enticed his curiosity in such a tempting way. The house itself was made of dark wood and cold stone floors, but even as dungeon-esque as it all seemed at first glance, it was also strangely cozy. Maybe that was the effect of the countless plants and obvious personal touches everywhere he looked. _ _

__When Kordelle opened the door to his room, the hallway was flooded with light; the curtains had been left open while he was gone at school. "Ugh, not again," he groaned, making his way around piles of books stacked up on the floor to reach the far wall. With the curtains drawn so suddenly, Dude was blinded when plunged into nearly absolute darkness, and he put a hesitant hand out to the side to try and feel for the door frame. His fingers grazed against the base of something kind of cylindrical and remarkably smooth, even to his heightened touch, though it also bore cracks that stood out like sore thumbs. The room lit up with a dim orange glow and revealed Kordelle as he was putting his hand over a tinted glass vase and whispering an incantation._ _

__The spell dropped off from his lips mid-sentence as he stared at Dude and the lamp he had touched for a mere second. Inside the fabric shade, the lightbulb flickered weakly and blinked out soon after Dude pulled his hand back toward himself, but the deed was done. "Oops?" Dude mumbled. Another source of light flashed pale blue-- the vase Kordelle had been casting on was suddenly the lantern for a ball of self-sustaining energy that did a good job of showing the raised eyebrows, wide eyes, and gaping mouth on Kordelle's face._ _

__"What did I do?" Dude immediately asked, his gaze darting back and forth between his new friend and the lamp._ _

__"That... That lamp's not plugged in, Dude," Kordelle murmured, shock diluting his voice to a near whisper. "It hasn't worked in _years_. Oh my gosh-- Fan Liu! C'mon, we gotta talk to her right now-- _Fan Liu, are you busy?_ " _ _

__He seized Dude's wrist and yanked him back into the hallway, where he navigated the dim corridor with ease while Dude struggled not to trip on any of the clutter crowding the stairs. A trip through the jungle kitchen and a few sharp turns later, the two boys were in what could only be the basement. Upon first glance, the back wall was smooth and uninteresting in its entirety, but when Kordelle reached for midair around hip-level, a knob appeared in his hand. Suddenly the glamour disappeared for Dude as well and presented an old, wooden door with a carved knob of brass, still shiny from decades of handling._ _

__Kordelle wrenched it open unthinkingly, and that's when the world went darker than the black curtains over every window._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lame ending is lame, I know, and I'm sorry about that, but this chapter's getting long enough as is. Either way, what do you think? We've gotten a few questions answered but even more questions to ask now, muwahahahaha~
> 
> Also, I've got a fun thing going on over on my tumblr where people are asking the NF/TSS characters questions about anything and everything, on anon or off. If you want to, feel free to pop on over there and ask away! I'm turt-burglar on there. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope I'll see you in the next chapter!


	6. Chapter 6

When reality finally began to return, the first thing Dude registered was fast, angered scolding in a language he couldn't understand a single word of. Whoever this lady was, she was _pissed_. Lying on his back on the cold basement floor, Dude groaned deep in his throat and furrowed his brow. Why did everything hurt like this? The pins and needles in his extremities were red hot and buzzing with intense energy.

A somewhat more familiar voice started talking-- apologizing, if Dude hazarded a guess-- in the same language. Was it Chinese? It kind of sounded like it. 'Ugh, head's spinning...' A hand went to his shoulder and shook him gently, trying to rouse him from unconsciousness. Dude's eyes blinked open slowly, his eyelids breaking apart in increments, and sucked in a shockingly cold breath of air. 

"Uhhh...?" was about the best he could manage to say with his tongue tied up in so many figurative knots. 

"I'm so sorry, Dude!" Kordelle cried out, bracing his new friend while trying to lift him into a sitting position. The attempt was a bust; Dude only rose an inch or two off the ground before slumping back down, limp as a rag doll. "I shouldn't've rushed into the study like that-- without checking if it was safe to go in." 

"Do you know where you are?" a new voice, that same lady who had been yelling up until a moment ago, asked in a gravelly but much more caring tone than her yelling had been. 

The inside of his mouth tasted how he would imagine sandpaper to be, and it felt almost as rough, but somehow he managed to croak out, "The... basement? Ugh... I think I'm gonna be sick, man."

"Good, it looks like you were just stunned by the impact," the older lady said with a breath of obvious relief. "Which is strange, considering that was a very high-energy spell to have gone awry... Endellion, you know better than to charge in without knocking!"

"I know, Fan Liu, and I'm very sorry," Kordelle answered sincerely. "I'll dust the entire library or something to apologize, if you want." 

Now that he was more aware of his surroundings, Dude caught on to an inconsistency and raised an eyebrow at it. "Wait... Endelly-who?"

Kordelle blanched. "Oh, crap, I didn't tell you that. Some witches have second names for within their coven and clan. Mine is Endellion; it means 'fire soul.'" 

"Whoa, rad," Dude commented as he picked himself up into a sitting position. He reached both hands out for Kordelle to grab, and with their combined effort they managed to get him back on his feet, much to Fan Liu's disapproval. 

"You shouldn't move around too much," she advised sternly. Her talking caused him to focus on her, finally, and take in her appearance. Probably somewhere in her forties, Fan Liu's skin was sallow and her features were narrow, giving her the impression of a very judgmental bird. Her intimidating stare was highlighted by the remarkable depths of her dark, soulful eyes streaked through with various perpendicular lines of color-shifting opal. She reached a hand out to Dude and grasped his forearm in an incredibly sturdy grip. "Come on, sit down inside." 

The strings of ornaments decorating her person jingled merrily as she led him inside the hidden study and bade him to sit on a three-legged stool standing next to a cluttered work bench. Dude's black opal eyes wandered eagerly, alighting on each interesting thing he saw for a split second before moving on to the next item. A mirror covered by a sheer slip of cloth hung on one wall, and charms hanging from the ceiling made it slightly more of a challenge to navigate through without hitting his head on any of the lower-hanging ones. The floor had been recently swept, he noticed when he angled his gaze toward his feet for a moment. 

With him resting semi-comfortably on the stool, Dude looked between the two other witches curiously. "So, what hit me, exactly?"

Fan Liu didn't answer that right away; instead, she leaned in close and took the sides of his face in both of her hands to turn him this way and that. "Hmm... opalescence, for certain. Do you know what clan you're from? And what's your name?"

"Uh, I'm Dude," he replied, clearly not sure what to think of the unorthodox treatment. "And no? I don't think so?"

"Strange," was all she had to say on that matter, apparently. "Endellion, is he a friend from school? Do you know what his conduit is yet?"

"Yes, and yes," the Australian boy answered, gaining back a bit of the excitement that had led him to act so rashly a few moments ago. "He has a _touch_ conduit, Fan Liu! And I think I might know his specialization, too!"

"You know that is something I haven't taught you yet," Fan Liu sighed, turning to look at her young pupil while putting her hands on her hips. "It is very difficult to determine a witch's specialization, and it's not something you want to get wrong."

"But he touched an unplugged lamp and _it lit up!_ " Endellion all but exclaimed, looking ready to burst from elation. "And-- And just now, you said that was a high-energy spell, but he practically absorbed all of it, right? Doesn't that mean something about his specialization?"

Presented with this new information, Fan Liu's thin eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch higher while she covered her pensive frown with a bony hand. "... _Perhaps_. Still, don't jump to any conclusions so quickly."

"Could I maybe have some questions answered?" Dude cut in quickly, having spent the entirety of the conversation looking for an opportunity to speak up. "'Cause I'm still _really_ confused about a lot of stuff." 

The other two witches shared a quick glance that Dude couldn't quite read before they seemed to have given him their attention. "So, like, what hit me? Should I be worried about that?" 

"Considering how well you've reacted so far, I don't think you need to worry about any side effects," Fan Liu assured him gently. "You will probably just feel a bit dizzy if you try to stand in the next hour or so." 

"Okay, that's good to hear." He leaned back against the workbench and paid no mind to the sharp edge pressing into his spine. "And why did that lamp light up back there when I touched it? Is that my power? Making stuff light up?"

Kordelle suppressed a laugh that turned into an amused smirk before answering. "No, that's only part of it. With the right spell, I could probably do that, too, but it's significant because you know next to nothing about all of this and still managed to do that." 

The gears of conversation shifted a little when Fan Liu spoke next. "Dude, can you tell me a little bit about your life?" She pulled up another stool from around the corner of the work bench and settled in comfortably to his left side while Kordelle put most of his weight on one leg and stood to Dude's right. "It would help me figure out your specialization, and maybe even what clan your bloodline comes from."

"Bloodline?" Dude echoed in confusion. "Being a witch is hereditary, then?" 

"It is," Fan Liu confirmed. "Someone in your family must be-- or have been-- a witch if you are one."

"I guess that makes sense." Dude pursed his lips a little as he mulled over a good starting point. "Well, okay, from what my mom has told me, my dad was never really someone who wanted a family, y'know? So when Mom got pregnant with me and my sister, she decided to try and come to America. Since we came along earlier than she expected, the three of us had to emigrate to America because we were technically born in Mexico. We lived in Nevada for a few years and then one day just moved up north until we settled here in Bailey Lake. Mom likes it here because there's a really nice school for kids with disabilities nearby. My sister's almost totally deaf."

"And what gemstone is your mother's eye color?" Fan Liu asked curiously after taking in his brief autobiography. 

"Amethyst," he answered readily. "But my sister's eyes are white opal. Do you think she's a witch, too?" 

"Without a doubt," Kordelle piped up confidently.

"Have you met her yet?" Fan Liu asked skeptically. 

"... Not _yet_..." 

"This is exactly what I keep saying to you, Endellion," she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between her index and thumb. "We need to be absolutely positive of the truth before we act rash. Dude, is there any way you could bring your sister to Endellion tomorrow afternoon? He can find out if she is a witch, too-- although, when one twin is a witch, the other is almost certainly one, too," she amended mostly to herself. 

Dude shook his head mournfully. "Sorry, she goes to school on the other side of town, and Mom wouldn't like it if she didn't come home on time. But maybe I can talk to her about all this and try to give her the conduit test?" 

Fan Liu smiled ever so slightly at his willingness to help and shook her head, patting his shoulder briefly. "It would be best if a trained witch takes care of that. We will find a way, do not worry. Now, I think it would be a good idea to start explaining what we are. I know you have had a lot of information dumped onto you all at once, but this is very important knowledge."

Dude nodded eagerly and settled into his chair further, visibly showing that he was ready to learn. "Okay, I'm all ears."

Fan Liu put her hands out in front of her, close together and palms up, while closing her eyes. A faint grey mist began to congeal in midair, twisting and writhing over her skin. Slowly, with all other eyes in the room focused on the spectacle, the mist drifted into shapes that clarified when Fan Liu spoke next. 

"Witches have existed, we presume, as long as humans have. However, we are not exactly humans since we have the ability to harness and use magic from the fabric between dimensions. We do this to protect humans from what comes through the other side: _ghosts_." The mist formed a vaguely menacing shape with a humanoid body and empty space in the chest cavity. "Without our magic and protection, humans would not be where we all are today by a long shot." More shapes, smaller but humanoid as well, cowered under the looming 'ghost' and were smote one by one until only a single human remained. A deep shade of burgundy bled into the mist, filling the soulless figure to further distinguish it from its last would-be victim. 

Dude realized just then that he had been holding his breath in anticipation of what would happen to the last 'human.' He let it out quietly, making sure not to breathe in Fan Liu's direction out of fear that he would blow away her story. The single human rose up to its feet suddenly and turned a pastel shade of bright yellow while holding its arms out to either side. A bolt of what could have been mistaken as lightning but was probably just a general representation of magic shot out from the yellow person and struck the ghost through the hole in its chest, vaporizing it into a formless cloud of mist that dissipated on the air. Then, more and more white figures appeared behind the yellow one and began to multiply into a miniature crowd. 

"Witches exist to protect humanity from the evil beings that want to do harm to our world," Fan Liu reiterated in a solemn voice. A few of the heads in the crowd of mist also turned yellow, scattered throughout the masses. "We come from all walks of life across the globe, fighting our own battles and strengthening our numbers while remaining a secret to the general population. I'm sure you have heard of the Salem Trials, Dude." 

After being enraptured for so long, Dude stammered to find his tongue when he was suddenly addressed. "Oh, uh, yeah, yeah. A lot of people were sentenced to die because they were suspected of being witches. Did that really happen the way history says it did?" 

Fan Liu shook her head at that, as did Kordelle off to the side. "Not really," he added. 

"Most of the people they hung were innocent humans that were just in the wrong place at the right time," she explained mournfully, her eyes drifting sadly to the ground on her left. "The witch world has had millenia to perfect their escape routes and secret-keeping techniques, so only one or two of our own were sentenced to death in those trials. And even then, those witches still made it out alive by faking their deaths and escaping with magic and help from other witches. It is still a sad time in our history, though, and one that we fear could happen again if we aren't careful."

Dude nodded, a shallow gesture that was laden with secondhand grief. "I guess that explains why no one told me about any of this until just now."

"Well, I would have talked to you sooner if I had known about you sooner," Kordelle piped up in an attempt to reassure him of his importance. "I haven't been actively searching for other witches in our school until a few months ago, after that hostile takeover by that snake ghost."

"Oh, you mean Crom Cruach?" Dude immediately clarified. Both Fan Liu and Endellion winced at the name, and he figuratively pulled back to study their reactions. "What?"

"It's best not to say its name," Kordelle advised him gently. "Names have a lot of power, and especially when it comes to ghosts. We try to avoid directly mentioning them as much as possible, if we can help it." 

"Makes sense," Dude replied after a short hum. "But then... I remember everything that happened during that whole, uh, ordeal. Were the witches around here doing anything to stop him?"

Fan Liu and Endellion exchanged pained looks at that and had to shake their heads 'no.' Fan Liu was the one to explain. "Well, it is a bit of a long story, but witches do not react well with contact to ghosts. That snake would send out projections to take people away, and though most of us managed to avoid being bitten, those of us that were..." She tapered off, an intense sorrow brimming in her intriguing eyes. 

"We were forced to hide inside magical protective barriers for the entire three months that the city was under quarantine," Kordelle said in a hard tone, as if the memories still left a bad taste in his mouth. "It was the coven leaders' decision, although _I_ wanted to fight back--" 

" _Endellion_ ," Fan Liu warned him sharply, transforming her motherly gaze into one of cold authority. He closed his mouth immediately and looked away to glare at the ground. 

Dude had shrunk back a bit during all this and was pressing his back and arms into the edge of the work table a bit harder than necessary. "I'm... sorry I brought up such bad memories," he apologized quietly. 

"It's alright, really," Fan Liu assured him after letting out a loud exhale through her nose. "Recent history is just as important as ancient history. These are things that you will need to know, too."

Her palms pressed together, ending the mist show abruptly. Though he hadn't said anything about it, Dude had seen her unconscious mind recreate bits and pieces of that aforementioned 'recent history;' it had partially been the cause of him to shrink back in the first place. 

"We could, uh, change the subject a little?" he suggested awkwardly with an idle brush of his hand through the green part of his punkish hair. "What about my specialization? Could we try and find that out?"

A collective breath of fresh air seemed to cleanse the room of its negative energy when he spoke his idea out loud, and a tentative smile returned to Kordelle's face while Fan Liu just looked stern as usual. 

"I am sure you are eager to get started, but we need to wait until later for something like that," she decided, placing her hands on her hips resolutely. "You were hit by a rogue spell less than an hour ago, and the test for a witch's specialization is too draining to attempt in your condition. We should call it a day for now and have you come back tomorrow after school." 

"Aww, really? But I feel fine!" Dude pointed out with a gesture of his arms out at either side. "Is the test really that difficult?" 

"I think Fan Liu's right on this one," Kordelle said to him. "It's really not an easy test, and we shouldn't try anything with your magic until you're fully recovered."

Dude pursed his lips in a slight pout at that, but decided it was best not to argue with the two witches with years of experience over him. "I guess..."

"Endellion, why don't you two go up to your room and talk some more?" Fan Liu suggested in that sort of motherly way that hinted at it being more than a mere suggestion. "I was in the middle of some research on that anomaly we talked about before."

Kordelle brightened at that. She was taking his concerns seriously! "Sure, of course we'll get out of your way. C'mon, Dude; can you stand up?"

" _Pfft_ , yeah, 'course I ca- _whoa_ ," Dude tried to say as he slid off the stool and immediately wobbled like he had just stepped onto land after months out at sea. Luckily Kordelle wasn't far and managed to brace his side, which ended up with one of Dude's arms being slung over Kordelle's shoulders so they could shamble their way out of the study. They thanked Fan Liu for everything she had explained and done to help, and she saw them off with a restrained wave of her bony hand. 

 

 

The next day~

The clacking sound of metal tongs and plastic trays was almost drowned out by the rowdy chatter filling the cafeteria and Dude's ears. His bag lunch sat in front of him, unpacked and uneaten. How in the world could he bring himself to eat anything when his stomach was both fluttering with butterflies and twisting itself into knots? In the span of one afternoon, everything he thought he'd known about the world had been turned on its head. 

As his mind reeled with the implications of what all this new information could mean, he failed to realize that a pair of girls was making their way over to his location. Their near-unison setting down their bags and plopping themselves onto the bench to his right caused him to visibly jump and suck in a startled breath, but Saoirse and Camry only laughed at his reaction. 

"Hey, what's up, Dude?" Camry asked conversationally as she tore open a bag of her favorite sandwich: peanut butter and honey. "You got a lot on your mind or something?"

"Ehh, kinda," he answered with a nonchalant shrug. 

"Well, sorry for not responding to your text from way earlier," Saoirse apologized, an embarrassed half-smile gracing her glossed lips. "I meant to, but I got distracted." 

"Don't worry about it," Dude reassured her. "But fill me in, guys! Are these etiquette classes really as bad as you thought they would be?"

Words could not describe the looks of disgust, anger, exhaustion, and dread that crossed their faces at the mere mention of the etiquette classes. Dude's eyes widened as he looked between each of them. "So, uh, not great, then?"

"It's the _worst_ ," Camry moaned, hanging her head forward and letting her hands full of sandwich rest on the empty plastic bag. "The teacher absolutely _hates_ me, she's rude to a lot of the other girls when they don't immediately get everything right, _and_ it's practically impossible for me to leave when I, y'know, _need_ to." 

It was subtle implication that flew over Dude's head for a second before clarity shone in his opalescent eyes. " _Oh_ , you-- _seriously?_ Not even going to the bathroom works as an excuse?"

Saoirse gingerly patted her girlfriend's arm at that while Cam shook her head 'no.' "On our first day, things got a little... out of hand," she said cryptically. "If it hadn't been for my mom covering for her, she probably would've been kicked out of the cotillion altogether."

"Which I _still_ kind of wish had happened," Camry muttered before taking a huge bite of her chewy sandwich to muffle her grumbling. 

After discovering a side of reality he had never known existed before yesterday, it was understandable that Dude's brain was a little bit scrambled and having difficulty putting two and two together. Momentarily forgetting that Camry was a half-ghost was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, though. 

_Hey, don't freak out._

" _Ack_ \--!" Dude sputtered, choking on his juice when he inhaled all of a sudden. Why the hell was Kordelle's voice talking in his head? He coughed into the crook of his elbow as Camry thumped his back in an attempt to be helpful. 

"You okay?" Saoirse asked with concern shining in her pink tourmaline eyes. "Did it go down the wrong pipe?"

" _Hrrm_ \-- A little bit, yeah," he croaked, feeling warm in the apples of his cheeks from all the hacking. "I think I'm good now-- thanks, Cam, you can stop." 

_Sorry!_ Kordelle's voice apologized quickly. _I just wanted to make sure you were still coming over after school today. Just think your answer and I'll hear it._

Dude didn't respond right away, instead pivoting in his seat to look all around. A familiar, tan face was looking back at him through one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that gave the cafeteria a view of the courtyard where a good chunk of the student body was eating their lunches outside. The sky was a little bit overcast but not depressingly so, so it was a decent enough day for a picnic of sorts. Dude smiled at his new friend and waved, much to the confusion of Camry and Saoirse as they watched him. 

"Who're you waving to?" Camry asked curiously, trying to follow his line of sight. 

"That's Kordelle," Dude replied a split second before a bright idea lit up his face and he spun back around to face the two girls. "Hey, let's eat outside today! I'll introduce you to him."

"But we already sat down," Saoirse complained mildly, snapping off a bite of a peeled carrot stick.

"Oh, c'mon, Seersh," Camry said while nudging her girlfriend's arm. "I think we both know that it's more fun to eat where it's not so crowded and noisy."

Saoirse shrugged and gave in easily, scooping up her lunch to carry it out into the courtyard. The ragtag trio of unlikely friends weaved their way through the throngs of teenagers and stepped out into blessedly fresher air. Dude waved to Kordelle again and beckoned for him to come over. The boy complied hesitantly, his pace a bit wary as he took in the sight of the two girls he didn't yet know. 

"Hey, man!" Dude greeted cheerfully, just as much of a ray of sunshine as usual. "Where're you eating lunch? Mind if we join you?"

"Oh, uh, I usually just find a spot on the grass," Kordelle admitted, his boulder opal eyes flicking among their faces. "We could eat together, I guess." 

"Cool!" Dude crowed. 

Camry lifted a hand in a mellow wave. "Hey, I'm Camry, and this is Saoirse." Saoirse smiled and also waved, though her hand was occupied by a plastic bag of carrots. "Your name's Kordelle?"

"Yep, that's me," he replied. "I've seen you three studying together in the library every now and then."

"Don't we have a class together?" Saoirse asked him as they started toward the grass as a group and settled onto a patch that wasn't damp with dew or rainwater. 

"Yeah, we have history at the same time," Kordelle confirmed. He didn't have much in the way of lunch with him-- just a couple granola bars and a bottle of water. Dude frowned at that and held out his bag of chips for Kordelle to take some, which he did after a moment of quick contemplation. "Oh, uh, thanks."

"Don't mention it," he answered brightly. 

"You have really pretty eyes," Camry found herself blurting out before she could even pause to think about what was coming out of her mouth. Kordelle felt his tan cheeks tint with a pleasantly embarrassed shade of pink at that, and he smiled back at her. 

"Thanks, they're Australian Boulder Opal," he explained. 

"Hey, that fits your accent!" she gasped. "Were you born in Australia?"

"Yep. Lived there for nine years before coming to the States," Kordelle said. 

"That must've been a big change, especially since you were so little," Saoirse commented. She used the back of her hand to wipe off a bit of carrot juice that had leaked out of the corner of her lips. "Why did you move here?"

"I was, well, taken in by some distant relatives," he said, adopting a slightly different tone of voice. It was by no accident that no one felt like asking for specifics after that. Just a quick little dip into their minds allowed him to redirect their focus of attention to something other than his past. 

However, upon taking the briefest of peeks into the mind of Camry, he was surprised to sense something vaguely familiar, like something he had searched for in a dream. He raised his eyebrow for a split second, but didn't linger too long inside her brain space out of respect for her privacy. Then again, he was picking up something else, also faint, from her person, too. What _was_ it? 

"Hey, uh, I've got a random question," he asked her, and Camry visibly perked up while giving him her full attention. "Do either of your parents smoke?" 

"Smoke?" she echoed, her brow furrowing at the notion. "No, why?"

'They don't? And she definitely doesn't, either. But then, what is that campfire smell coming off of her skin?' he wondered. 

Kordelle waved a flippant hand, using his natural magical ability to redirect their attention once more. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

"If you say so," she said with a shrug, which was exactly what he predicted she would do. 

'There really is something familiar about her' he thought. Something was nagging him at the back of his brain, like a warning that he should already know exactly what he was looking at despite the fact that he couldn't quite recall why. 'Well, now I'm curious.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm SO SORRY this is so late in coming out! I've got finals coming up and need to work a lot, so writing sessions have been few and far between. But here it is, chapter five! Please leave a comment and kudos because I always appreciate them!
> 
> What do you guys think is gonna happen next? I'm genuinely curious to know, so if you feel like sharing, I may even let you know just how close you are to the truth ;) See you in the next chapter!


	7. Chapter 7

Near the end of fifth period~

A low chattering murmur was audible through the door as Kordelle approached the full classroom and peered inside. The students of third-year French were an interesting bunch, to say the least, but the youngest of the class was the one he was interested in at that moment. As they worked on pages in their workbook, the high schoolers chattered in amicable, young French with one another and occasionally laughed or gasped at what someone else said. 

Kordelle made sure to cast a charm that would divert the attention of anyone who happened to see him standing outside of another classroom like a weird stalker. 'Okay, I know I don't normally do anything like this, but I have to figure out what it is about her that's bothering me' he told himself silently, putting one hand flat against the smooth wooden door. Camry sat at her desk, hunched over her workbook and not really saying much to anyone. Even with her back turned to the door, it was obvious that she was rather lost in thought. 

It was a simply matter to extend a mental finger out and prod into the top-most layers of her conscious mind. As he expected, Endellion's mental eye was bombarded with a number of sensations that were both distant and uncomfortably close, both not his own and suddenly a part of him. Abstract colors and shapes drifted back and forth, taking up a lot of space that succeeded in distorting what he tried to make sense of. 'Ugh, come on' he groaned. 'What exactly is it? I'll find it, I just have to dig a little bit deeper.'

As much as it unnerved him to invade someone's private thoughts, he steeled himself for whatever he expected to see and hear. Closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath, he reached in just a tiny bit further.

_Great, I don't know_ any _of these new verbs._

Finally, he had reached her train of coherent thought! Endellion sensed obvious irritation fueled by exhaustion and a twinge of self-loathing that forced some of his heart to go out to her. The life of a high school student was certainly rough, and even though he hardly needed to attend it in the first place, he still understood that not everyone was as lucky as he was to have such impressive mental faculties. 

_Why in the world did I think I could take such an advanced language course? I barely have enough time to do anything anymore! Ugh..._ In the real world, she sucked in a deep breath through her nose and let it out as a restrained sigh. _And after this class, it's back to Mrs. Bosch's bootcamp. I swear, I should just skip out and not show up one of these days. It'd make both of us a lot happier._

Fleeting images of an uptight woman strutting regally around a dance studio filled her head only to elicit an emotional response of dread and distaste. It didn't take a psychic witch to tell she wasn't even the least bit happy about this obligation. 

_But, then again, I can't just leave Saoirse there to suffer._ She sighed again, but this time it was a little less weary and filled with a little more fondness. _I guess if there's one good thing to come out of all this, it's that we'll still get to spend some time together at the cotillion. I wonder what her dress is gonna look like..._

More images appeared as ethereal visions of the possibilities her imagination conjured up. Endellion frowned at the drivel he wasn't interested in, but the hope that her train of thought would give him a clue was too strong to discard. 'Come on, give me something to work with' he pleaded. 

_We had_ better _get to dance together, I swear. If they try to step in and stop us, I'm not gonna hesitate to bust out a can of whoop-ass on their asses._ The graphite tip of her mechanical pencil paused against the paper, and her grip noticeably tightened on the plastic barrel. Even with his eyes closed, Endellion could watch her watching its shape warp ever so slightly as her hold on it strengthened with anger. 

A little fantasy began to take shape. The setting was somewhat dream-like with its lack of definite substance, but it echoed a romantic ballroom with glowing candles and tall, gothic windows looking out over a lush garden. For some reason, the garden was very well defined in its details; among those highlights were a few broken rosebushes, as if something large and heavy had plowed through them, and a few skid marks in the dirt. Camry's mind's eye turned back from the momentary distraction and returned indoors, where she and Saoirse were twirling around and around in time with the music and laughing at something that had been said between them. 

Then, as the mood took on a sudden shift to something more sinister, two faceless boys stepped up to cut in on their dancing, and from a few paces away that same imposing woman tutted in disapproval at their shameless display of romantic affection. Just as their hands broke apart, the fantasy froze and dissipated, and in the real world Camry shook her head as if that would fling away the idea. Endellion sensed something akin to a warm blush forming on her cheeks as she stared down at her paper without seeing it. Innocent visions of the two girls dating, kissing, going on walks along a sunny island beach with a volcano behind them, and other similar scenarios suddenly dominated her train of thought.

Kordelle immediately backpedaled out of that as fast as his powers would let him and suppressed the urge to awkwardly cough into the crook of his elbow. 'Oh, jeez, um, no.' His well-accepted ace-aro nature was definitely not interested in seeing such mushy, romantic stuff. The split-second decision to abort the mission was well-timed, as it would seem, because the bell had rung to let the students out of their last class of the day, which meant that he was now standing between a bunch of high schoolers and leaving. That was _never_ a good place to be. 

He jumped back to avoid being hit by the heavy door swinging open and quickly picked up his things he had left by a bay of lockers before it could be stepped on. As he walked away, Endellion stewed in his own thoughts, mulling over the results of his search. That feeling had been there again, if only for a brief moment while Camry's fantasy had become distracted by that torn-up garden. If he hadn't had years of experience learning how to tell the difference between what the brain imagined and what it actually remembered, he probably would have discounted it as some sort of subconscious fixation on gardening. However, it was definitely not a figment of her imagination. 

That garden had been a _memory_ , one with close ties to those skid marks and broken rosebushes. There was something very ethereal about that memory, like she herself still couldn't quite believe it had been real. What's more, if he could just remember where he had felt that same strange feeling before, Kordelle knew with the utmost certainty that he would figure out why Camry had intrigued him so much all of a sudden. He didn't pry into people's minds for no reason, after all. 

'Whatever' he thought with a thoughtful frown. 'I'll figure this out eventually. There's got to be a reason for why she's got my attention all of a sudden. Maybe I should talk to Fan Liu about it.' 

Past experience had taught him that this was probably not a good idea in a situation like this one. Kordelle could already hear her scolding him in Mandarin, telling him he was acting rash and jeopardizing the coven's secrecy by using his powers so recklessly. _What if she can sense you prying into her mind? You could easily slip up, and it could be too late for you to fix your mistakes. Leave her alone, she probably has nothing to do with anything of importance._

'That's not true. I'm sure of it' he promised himself just as he looked up and his eyes fell on the sight of Dude and Saoirse chatting while they waited in the courtyard for Camry to meet up with them. Now that he was outside, Kordelle took in a deep breath of much cooler air and tried not to think about the scents of car exhaust, blooming flowers releasing their pollen, and the fresh paint still drying on the school's latest mural project halfway across the campus. 'There's something different about her.' 

Now that he could take a look at her friends and mentally compare the two of them to her, he alone could see that there was a subtle, nearly undetectable difference. A checklist appeared in his head, running down a list of possibilities. A chronic physical illness? Probably not. A mental disorder? Maybe. She did seem unnecessarily anxious under the surface both times he looked into her mind. 

"Hey, Kordelle," a familiar, feminine voice spoke up from his left, and he visibly jumped and nearly lost his hold on his textbooks. Camry barely supressed a giggle and gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. You were so lost in thought, though! Are you okay?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah, totally," he answered quickly, trying to brush off his surprise as calmly as possible. 'Definitely was _not_ just probing around in your head space _at all_.'

"Okay," was her even reply. "C'mon, I can see Dude and Saoirse over there. Hey, guys!" she called out with an eager wave of her hand high up in the air. For good measure, the short teen stood up on her tip-toes with practiced ease and managed to catch their attention. 

Dude looked up from where he sat on a low wall and waved, too, a beaming grin on his face that only widened when he saw Kordelle standing next to Camry. Saoirse smiled, too, and beckoned for them to make their way through the sea of eager students vying to be the first ones out. When the four of them stood together, Saoirse picked up her duffel bag and slung it over her shoulder. "Ready to go?"

Camry's answer took the form of a weary sigh and, "I guess," as she also readjusted the strap of her own bag. 

Dude leaned forward where he sat at the top of the wall and rested his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. "Hey, it'll be okay, Cam! You really think you can't take someone like Mrs. What's-Her-Name?"

"Not when she's already got her finger on the "call her mother" panic button," she quipped in response. "The skies had better be clear today. The last thing we need is another crazy ghost attack on top of this fresh hell, y'know?"

A strangely perturbed look crossed over Dude's face at the mention of ghosts, and his gaze landed on Kordelle's somewhat smug smile. "I don't think you'll have to worry about anything like that, Camry." 

"Oh? What makes you say that?" she asked, an eyebrow lifted out of curiosity. 

"Just a feeling I have. My intuition is never wrong," he replied with a shrug of one shoulder. "Besides, it's not like they fly by every day."

"Or run, in Relle's case," she added in concession to that. 

Though no one but Saoirse saw, Dude's eyes threatened to bug out of his head at her mentioning her ghostly half to a witch-- a _very powerful_ witch, no less. To his surprise, Dude watched as Kordelle snickered at that and nodded. "True."

"C'mon, Cam, we're gonna miss the lift if we don't get going," Saoirse said with a nod of her head toward the street. 

"Right," she sighed. "See you guys tomorrow!"

"Bye!" Dude called after them. "You can survive, I know it!"

"I think I'll shoot for half-surviving!" Camry shot back mirthfully over her shoulder. Dude laughed a little awkwardly at that, though he so wanted to give her a signal to let her know not to make undead jokes. What a time to finally realize how grave, if you'll excuse the pun, the situation of having Camry and Kordelle near one another was. 

'Oh no' Dude thought, gulping almost comically before tearing his gaze away from the sight of his two best friends walking away, arm in arm. When he met Kordelle's opalescent eyes, his heart skipped the tiniest of nervous beats. 'Please don't read my thoughts, oh my god.'

"Are you okay, Dude?" the Australian boy asked. "You look kinda pale."

Dude let out a breath and jumped back down to the ground, bending his knees to absorb the impact before standing up straight. One strap of his backpack went on his shoulder. "Nah, everything's totally fine, man. So, we gonna go to your house now?"

"Sure," Kordelle answered, falling into step beside the shorter boy. "I gotta admit, mate, I'm really glad you're so eager about all of this. There aren't usually that many others around my age, so... it's a nice change of pace."

As they walked along, Dude nudged Kordelle's arm in a friendly gesture. "Hey, you're in luck, 'cuz I know another one who's practically the same age as I am. You can have _two_ new friends your age."

Their laughter at his joke echoed off the side of the school building. Nearby, a cleverly, magically disguised hole in the wall sat, waiting to be opened. And little did it know that someone was about to do just that as soon as dusk fell that very night.

~~

" _Camry_ ," Mrs. Bosch said in that tone of voice teachers always use when they think they sound like they're picking someone randomly but _everyone_ knows they've been planning on calling on that one student from the very beginning. "Would you care to demonstrate for everyone what you've learned about the table setting arrangement for the six-course meal you will be eating at the cotillion?"

Even from across the table and several seats down, Saoirse could see Camry struggling very much to suppress an audible groan of barely disguised hatred. "Where should I start, Mrs. Bosch?" she asked in a tight voice.

"Begin by folding the napkin properly into your lap."

'I swear, if it wasn't for Mom teaching me all of this stuff, I would be screwed' Camry thought as she focused on the task. She knew her cheeks were burning as the other girls in the room trained their eyes on her. Even though their attention was so intense, Cam didn't need to be a mind-reader to know they were just glad that they weren't the ones being called on. 'Well, fine. If she wants to see me fail, I guess I'll have to disappoint her.'

~

Class was finally over, and as they waited for a text from Saoirse's mother telling them to hop onto a lift and ride it back down to the earth's surface, Camry and Saoirse talked in close quarters and low voices. Most of the other girls had already left the building, so it was relatively quiet. From farther down the hall, a toilet flushed noisily and reminded Camry of the last time a ghost had attacked during their etiquette lesson. 

'So far, so good, I guess' she thought. 'Looks like Kordelle was right, somehow.'

"Alright, so let me hear it," Saoirse said out of the blue. 

"Huh? Hear what?" Camry asked, looking bewildered.

"You've been looking into the distance a lot ever since school let out today," she recounted matter-of-factly. "And don't think I didn't see when Mrs. Bosch caught you off guard because you were lost in thought at the table. You've got something on your mind."

The idea that her girlfriend could read her so easily brought a fond smile to Camry's lips. "Well, I mean... it's not really all that definite of a thought, I guess. School, all of _this_ , fighting _you know whats_... It's just a lot to deal with all at once."

"I can only imagine," Saoirse sympathized, putting a cool hand on Camry's bare shoulder. Her tanktop did little to hide the already somewhat defined muscles of her back and arms. "But, if it makes you feel any better, I think you've been doing an amazing job so far. This cotillion nonsense will be over soon, anyway. And spring break starts after tomorrow!"

"Sure, but then there will still be ghosts, and I've got a French final tomorrow that I'm totally unprepared for," Camry countered, leaning back against the wall and crossing her arms over her chest. Her chin dipped down so she could stare at the tip of her shoe drawing circles on the linoleum floor. "I'm still worried about that _witch_ thing Batron mentioned, too." 

"Why are you worrying about something you know next to nothing about?"

"That's exactly why: because I don't know anything about it," Cam explained, gesturing with one hand, palm up and fingers loosely curled. "But I know it's a threat, and that scares me. A lot." Only by some small miracle had her injury stopped causing her pain with every brush of her shirt fabric shifting against it. Even so, it still burned dully in the back of her mind, serving its purpose of subtly reminding her that she needed to be on her guard at all times. 

As serious as the atmosphere had become, Camry still found she was able to offer Saoirse a faint smile. "At least I've got you here with me, though. You and Dude, of course." 

"And we'll always be here for you," Saoirse reassured her, knowing full well that occasional assurance of Camry's place in their lives was very important for her to hear. "Y'know, we don't know much about witches, but have you tried looking stuff up online?" 

"Yeah, but everything I got seemed too dorky and commercialized to be real," Camry answered a bit huffily. A gentle note sounded from Saoirse's jacket pocket, and without even needing to read the text specifically, the two of them started toward the exit to jump onto a lift at the nearby station. 

"Okay, I kinda figured that would be something of a bust, but I had to ask. Any other ideas?"

Camry pursed her lips in a frown, cupping her chin with one hand. "I mean, I've got one, but I _really_ don't like it."

"Lemme hear it," Saoirse immediately said, pushing a door open to let them out into the fresher air. 

" _Wellll_..." She trailed off uncertainly, lolling her head to one side as they walked. 

Her ghost sense's timing had never been better as it was just then, when a faint grey wisp left her mouth in unison with a small hiccup. "Oh, crap. You're _kidding_ me. What're you gonna tell Mum when she only picks up _one_ of us?"

"Uhhh... Maybe she'll cover for us like she did that other day?" Saoirse suggested weakly, an awkward smile gracing her lips. "Duty calls, though."

"You're telling _me_ ," Camry groaned. She leaned up on her toes to plant a quick smooch on Saoirse's cheek and set her bag down on the ground. It was time to find a secluded place to transform. "Maybe I'll be able to put my idea into action, though. We'll find out, I guess. Text you later!"

"Be careful!" Saoirse called after her, the strap of her girlfriend's bag already in one hand. It was a very good thing there wasn't anyone else nearby, or else that might have seemed suspicious.

Camry dove into a thicket of bushes before the rings of orange-tinted white light appeared her middle to travel upwards, changing her appearance as they went. Of course, she couldn't just pop out of the bushes as Relle, so she turned invisible and took off running to stop at the edge of the floating acre. Perched on top of a chain-link fence, her far-sighted eyes surveyed the scene before her. The Sky Trio Towers were only a mile or so away, and from here she could see Delta Pin to her right. Bailey Lake sparkled under the late afternoon sunlight to the far left of her postition. 

There! Zooming over the rooftops was a distinct figure with long, lavender-colored hair pulled up into a high ponytail. The ghost was making her way from the lake and heading toward Delta Pin, a popular spot for haunting and causing a little mayhem. The familiar sight of that purple hair caused Relle to squint ever so slightly in bewilderment. "Back so soon, Shasta?" she murmured to herself. 

Relle gathered strength in her leg muscles and rocketed off the chain-link fence, putting up both fists over her head as wind rushed past her and the ground surged up to meet her. She didn't give it a chance; white tiles appeared underfoot, and she tucked into a roll upon impact before running out of it. Fast-forward spaces helped her draw closer to Shasta, who had paused on a rooftop and was looking all around for some reason. When she was finally within earshot, Relle wasn't even breathing hard. 

"So, how's it hanging?" she began somewhat conversationally. "Got something up your sleeve today?"

Shasta was a willowy ghost with rather rounded facial features and a penchant for wearing odd trinkets in her hair. She glowered at Relle hotly, her poisonously purple eyes glowing fiercely with ghostly power. "Look, as much as I'd love to get right into it with you-- Pariah only knows how much I could use the stress relief-- I'm not here to fight." She flicked the end of her ponytail back off her shoulder and put her hands on both hips, one of which jut out casually. 

"Then what are you here for, if it's not to try and kick my ass?" Relle inquired, warily stepping down from a white tile and alighting on the warm concrete rooftop. 

Shasta grumbled something under her breath and used the toe of her sneaker to dislodge a loose chunk of the roof. A sideways kick sent it flying over the edge to the sidewalk twelve stories below. Silence hung between the two of them like a wet blanket, uncomfortable and heavy. "Sure, _I_ had to be the one to do this..."

"C'mon, Shasta, what is it?" Relle pressed, though most of the hostility in her tone had diminished. Something about Shasta's behavior was relatable and made it harder to act mad or tough. 

"Look, we--" Shasta cut herself off with an exasperated sigh before continuing. "It wasn't my idea to come here, but some of the others have an offer to make."

"An offer?" she echoed, raising both eyebrows in surprise. "What kind of offer?"

"... For you to stay in the Ghost Zone."

Meanwhile, the lesson on familiars was going swimmingly with Allie. Dude had almost succeeded in summoning his own familiar already under Allie's tutelage, so it wasn't like Endellion was really needed right then. That was why, when Fan Liu peeked into the living room and beckoned for him to follow her, he didn't hesitate. Leaving behind the lush plants and glass orbs containing magical lamplight, he hurried down the stairs to the basement and quickly shut the study door behind him. "What is it, Fan Liu?" he asked in Mandarin as soon as they were alone. 

"Your favorite ghost is out and about again," she replied, removing the cover on the mirror with one smooth motion. "We are going to get a read on it before it disappears again."

"Oh," Endellion breathed, sidling up to her in front of the mirror to watch it activate. Green and silver light shone forth, leaving an abnormal afterimage on both witches' retinas. The view from the mirror was blurry, like looking at something submerged in water, but it gradually cleared up to a real-life resolution. Endellion took in the sight of a sunlit rooftop occupied by two teenaged girls, each with unnaturally colored hair. The purple-haired one looked inconvenienced, to say the least, while the target of Endellion's attention said something he couldn't hear through the glass. 

"What're you talking about?" Relle asked, incredulous and wide-eyed. "Live in the Ghost Zone? Why would I do that if everyone in there wants to _destroy_ me?"

"Didn't Batron explain it to you?" Shasta spat. "We close ranks if there are witches around, and lately they've become a lot more active than they used to be. Even if you're not _all_ ghost, the witches are still going to come after you. You'd be safe in the Ghost Zone with the rest of us."

Relle squinted at that. "Since when do other ghosts care about _my safety?_ Why would you guys want to help me, anyway?"

Shasta shook her head at that, making her ponytail swing back and forth. " _I_ don't care, personally, but I drew the short stick and just came to tell you that it's an open offer. So, there, I've done my part." She turned to go, putting her back to Relle, but paused before she could take off into the sky. "Oh, and one more thing."

"What's that?" she asked, resting a fist on her hip. It felt weird to just be talking with Shasta instead of dodging her purple fire attacks and weird ability to warp pockets of reality.

She didn't turn around or even look over her shoulder as she spoke. "There's a sign of being a witch; it's called 'opalescence.' One of the kids I've seen you hanging out with has it. Just... watch your back, okay?" 

On that cryptic note, she leapt into the air and let her legs merge into a long, wispy tail that curled at the tip even as she flew at top speed. Her lavender hair was just a speck against the backdrop of blue sky when Camry stopped watching her go and instead let her gaze drop to the concrete underfoot. " _What in the actual_...? 'Opalescence?' A sign of a witch, and one of my friends has it? No way, that can't be right. Wouldn't I know if one of my friends was a witch?"

'Well, probably not, actually. Neither of them knew I was a ghost for the longest time until I straight up told them' she amended. 

"But what even _is_ opalescence? And how would I be able to tell who has it?" Relle rolled her eyes, exasperated at the new layers of mystery surrounding this entire ordeal. 

"Perfect, the ghost is alone now," Fan Liu said, rubbing her hands together to warm them up before touching her fingertips to the edge of the mirror's gilded frame. "I'm going to teach you a new technique for dealing with ghosts, Endellion. I have a sneaking suspicion it's something only you can master."

"Why only me?" he asked curiously. 

Fan Liu pulled her gaze away from the scene before them to look him right in the eye. "There are many reasons why, but I believe your unqiue abilities make this a perfect fit for you. We will start with the preparation today and move on to learning the spell itself later. For now, reach into that ghost's mind and pull out its living name."

"Its living name?" he echoed, his brow furrowing. "But a ghost almost never knows its living name-- that's part of why it doesn't move on after death."

"It is subconscious in what's left of their minds, too far down for them to retrieve on their own," Fan Liu explained. "But you have come a long way in honing your mental magic, so I believe you can do it. I'll be right here the entire time, too."

Endellion nodded, and when he did so he could feel the charm in his ponytail shake up and down. "Okay, I'll try."

It was a good thing Relle seemed so lost in thought on that rooftop, because if she had been on the move it would have become that much more difficult to keep his focus. He pressed both palms flat against the glass itself and closed his eyes. It was a simple enough task to use the mirror in projecting his psychic presence over great distances like this, so just like with investigating Camry's train of thought earlier that same day, he had no trouble in slipping right in. He was immediately enveloped in a bank of brain fog as Relle tried to piece together the elusive bits of a puzzle she could only see part of.

"Ugh," she groaned, putting one hand to her forehead. Where in the world had this headache come from? It wasn't that she was thinking too hard about Shasta's message, or the warning to watch her back, or even the tip that one of her friends was a witch. No, this felt like an outside force pressing in on her skull from every direction, forcing her brain into a container too small for its girth. 

Only then, now that she had a frame of reference to go by, did Camry sense a shift in the immediate atmosphere. Something else was tainting the air, charging it with a strange energy that dug a foreboding feeling all the way into her ectoplasmic bone marrow. It forced a shiver up her spine even as the pressure in her head increased. 

" _Shasta?_ " she shrieked, struggling to whip around and look up at the clouds. "Where are you? Are you bending the space around me again? Knock it _off!_ "

"Keep going. You are doing well," Fan Liu quietly assured Endellion, her voice sounding far off despite coming from only a foot or so away. "Dig down as far as you can. A ghost doesn't feel it; their minds are too deteriorated."

No, that couldn't be right. Unless Relle had some sort of automatic conditioned response to his prying, which was highly unlikely, and could sense when he was using his power on her, which was also unlikely, then the warning signals Endellion could see firing in the ghost's remarkably intact brain were _real_. He almost drew back as a twinge of uncertainty shot through his chest, but his palms remained pressed to the glass nevertheless. 'I can do this. It's a _ghost_ ; it must be faking its reaction.'

"Shasta!" Relle screamed, clutching her head as she collapsed onto one knee and curled in on herself. " _Please, stop!_ " 

Endellion could feel a cold sweat breaking out on his brow. He had delved into plenty of minds before-- living _and_ dead minds-- and had never experienced anything quite like this. Even as he was the cause of it, he could feel the pressure he was exerting on Relle's mind in his search for her real name, and it was _terrifying_. 

"Do not entwine yourself with the ghost's consciousness!" Fan Liu called out in warning, but it felt like she was shouting from the other end of a long tunnel. 

"I _told_ you!" a high-pitched yell called down from above, and Relle just barely uncurled to look up at Shasta hovering there with the late afternoon sun as a backdrop. "Witches! Come on, we have to go before it's too late."

"I-- _Aagh!_ " Relle screamed, clutching even harder at her head as the pressure all but doubled. Whatever was messing with her head was acting even more erratic, as if it didn't like the idea of her leaving. She was so preoccupied with the agony in her skull that she had no presence of mind to stop Shasta from putting her arms around her and lifting her up. 

"Hurry, Endellion! Look for the name with a veil surrounding it!" Fan Liu exclaimed. 

"There is no veiled name anywhere!" he shouted back in English. Beads of sweat dripped down the sides of his face and neck to stain the collar of his plain T-shirt. Impatience was taking over, making him reckless in his searching. "There's just that feeling again!"

" _What_ feeling?" Fan Liu asked. She could only watch as the purple-haired ghost took off with their incapacitated target in its arms. "It's getting away!"

"I know, I know!" Endellion cried out, his finger joints bending ever so slightly with the urge to ball his hands into angry fists. "I felt this before, in her mind! Rrgh, what is it?" 

Wait. 

_Her_ mind. 

_Camry's_ mind. 

The Camry with the exact same scar on her cheek as Relle's. The Camry with the same body type and haircut. The Camry that smelled ever so faintly of smoke every time he stood near her, even though she had no reason to smell that way. 

_Camry_ was _Relle_. 

Endellion's eyes snapped open in an instant, but not before the brain fog cleared away entirely to let three distinct words float into view. He stared at them, shaking where he stood, and shook his head side to side rapidly. Then he was back in the basement study, with Fan Liu gripping his upper arms from where she stood behind him in case he fell. It was almost as if she could predict the future, because his knees gave out and all of his weight came down onto her, but the stocky woman braced him and managed to keep him more or less upright. 

"Did you find its name?" she asked. In the dead silence of the room, her gravelly voice was suddenly far too loud and abrasive. 

"It's... not possible," Kordelle croaked. Why was his throat so dry? He could barely make a sound. "That feeling... it was _her_ this whole _time_..."

Outside, Relle went limp in Shasta's arms just seconds before they hit the water of Bailey Lake. "Not that you need to, but hold your breathe!" Shasta shouted before she took the plunge. Barely a ripple on the surface was left behind as evidence that they had ever existed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spring break is finally here and I have caught a second wind for writing this story! I hope to update at least twice with long chapters before I go back for spring term, but here's an extra long one as an apology for being so quiet these past few weeks. Finals sucked, 'nuff said.
> 
> Please, please, please leave comments below and tell me what you think of the story so far! It really helps me keep my motivation for writing strong when I know you guys are enjoying the plot and characters. Thanks, and I hope to see you in the next chapter!


	8. Chapter 8

Eleanor Mahadeo's eyes were focused on the cell phone in her hand when the passenger side door opened to admit her daughter. As mundane as that should have seemed, the astute mother had subconsciously been expecting the two backseat doors to open instead. Before even looking up, Mum had one eyebrow raised. "Honey, where's Camry?" 

Saoirse didn't meet her mother's eyes when she replied. "She forgot something back at the studio and told me to go on ahead. _Us_. Told _us_ to go on ahead. It's fine, she said she'd meet us back at the house."

Mum took a moment to process that obvious cover story. "So... how is she going to get back to our house? We can wait for her."

"I think she mentioned needing to talk to her dance instructor about something and that it would probably take a while," Saoirse added. "She'd get a ride from her when they were done talking."

'That's somewhat more plausible' Eleanor admitted to herself before starting the car. "Alright, if you're both sure." 

As they left the shadow of the floating acre behind, Eleanor felt her stomach form knots of dread for both her biological daughter and her honorary daughter. If things got too out of hand, well... it wasn't something she particularly liked to dwell on. This secret Camry thought she was keeping from everyone so well was dangerous at best and downright fatal at worst.

Then again, it was already fatal once, wasn't it?

~

"I hope you all can appreciate the irony in this whole... _situation_." Why was a snide voice like Shasta's speaking from so close by? And why was my head throbbing like the bass line of a boosted Dubstep song? I coughed loudly a few times in reply to that, feeling like someone had sanded the lining of my throat with shards of glass. 

I think I moved first before opening my eyes, because a very bony hand pressed down on my shoulder and pinned me to the ground with more gentility than I would have expected. "Relle, you should have listened to me. We had the chance to leave before something like this could have happened! Foolish, foolish, _foolish_."

Of course, Batron had to rub it in my face while I was too in pain and dazed to retort. I sucked in a deep, chilly breath and let it out along with a very mumbled, "Shut your face." My lungs hurting, my chest hurting, the fact that I could tell that I was sopping wet because of how my clothes were plastered to me, and the freezing, difficult-to-breathe air all added up to a couple of conclusions that didn't quite make sense. Either I was having some sort of asthma attack underwater, I had drowned and was now in the Ghost Zone-- which would have been so sad, considering how "Relle" is a volcanic ghost of all types-- or I was dreaming a really weird, hyperrealistic dream. 

Either way, I gradually cracked my eyes open and was surprised to see a very blurry sky of acid green above me. I slowly lifted a hand up to my forehead and saw my bare, pale skin-- where were my gloves? And I had _sleeves_ \-- was I no longer Relle? What the hell _happened_ to me?

" _Mrgrrgh_ \--!" is probably the best way to describe the sound I made as the truth struck me like a brick to the face.

I was in the Ghost Zone. I was Camry again. My ghostly enemies were _surrounding me in my weakest state._

The second I struggled to sit up on my left elbow, that stupid witch blast injury flared up and pulled a strangled groan out of my throat. I lowered myself back down in increments, focusing on one movement at a time to minimize the pain. Why did I hurt all over? 

"So, let me go first in saying, 'You're welcome, and you will _definitely_ be owing me big time for this,'" Shasta began from where she floated lazily on her back just a couple of feet above the ground. "Ghosts really don't give CPR on a regular basis, so be _eternally_ grateful I haven't forgotten what I learned in my high school health class."

"C... PR?" I echoed dumbly, blinking multiple times in her general direction. " _What_... What happ'ned?"

"Take it one step at a time," Batron advised me from where he crouched on my other side. "We will explain it all to you in due time."

"Nice job switching back the second we went under, by the way," Shasta giggled, changing up her position so she was floating on her stomach with her ankles crossed up high. "You breathed in a lot of water and I had to revive you. Y'know, we _could'a_ just let you stay that way until you were all the way like us, but--"

" _Shasta_ ," Batron warned her in a low tone that made it clear she was overstepping her boundaries. "You are _not_ helping."

She harrumphed peevishly at that. " _I_ thought I was helping more than anyone else around here." 

"Would you quit your incessant yapping for more than ten seconds, dears?" a notably British lady's voice demanded from just outside of my limited range of vision. "We have very pressing matters to deal with, ones that are far more important than preening your pompous tail feathers."

Oh _great_ , Izora was around, too. The aristocratic ghost was definitely sipping on spectral tea and twirling a lacy parasol-- despite there being no sun or rain in the Ghost Zone-- as she looked on from afar. I didn't even have to look at her to know it was true. 'Who else is here?' I wondered bleakly.

Now that most of my senses were back, I could make out hushed whispers all around me. If I wasn't mistaken, I could make out Pranav's distinct Indian accent murmuring in the background, and Mantua was definitely chatting up a storm with, if I had to take a guess, Bopper or Kairomir. It was unlikely that Russolo the Unchained was paying attention to anything more than himself or his magic tricks. 

Batron's top hat slithered into view, followed by his face wearing a very serious expression. "We need to know, Relle: did the witch find your name?"

Old habits die hard-- or, in my case, don't really die at all. I glared at him before rolling my eyes. "What the hell are you talking about, Batron? How would I know?"

"Did you think of your living name before you passed out?" he reiterated in an overly patient tone. 

"Does that really matter?" I groaned.

"It does, and you should be taking this seriously!" Pranav snapped suddenly, and all of a sudden the bared teeth of a snarling tiger were inches from my nose. Considering my past experience in dealing with large predatory cats trying to kill me, it was little wonder that my first instinct was to roll away as fast as my muscles would let me. The ground scraping against my injury shot acid into my veins and yanked another groan out of me. Pranav wasn't letting me go far, though, and stepped on my upper arm just so that the tips of his claws dug into my flesh. "If those _beasts_ control you, they could destroy us all!"

"Pranav, darling, _please_ ," Izora drawled lazily. "Don't stop, I greatly enjoy the sight of her disoriented and trapped under your paws."

"With pleasure," Pranav snarled. I didn't need to be on my back to tell when he was shapeshifting into something much larger; the weight on my arm increased rapidly and the paw definitely belonged to a bear of some sort, judging by how much more of me it suddenly covered. 

" _Ow, ow, ow!_ " I yelled, gritting my teeth and screwing my eyes shut tight. " _Rrgh_ , I _swear_ , I'm gonna tear you a--!"

"Enough of that, all of you!" Russolo barked, and before I could figure out how, Pranav was crouching a dozen or so feet away, no longer crushing me. I sucked in a grateful breath and pushed myself up on my hands and knees. 

"This is achieving the exact _opposite_ of our goal," Batron added in just as stern a voice. "We did _not_ bring her here to threaten her."

"Is it not a legitimate tactic?" Izora inquired with mock innocence. "Fear is just as effective as friendship."

"Hey, I am _not_ becoming friends with her!" Shasta shouted with a jab of her pointer finger in my direction. "That is _never_ gonna happen!"

Back on my feet, I threw my fists out to either side in a forceful gesture and flashed into my Relle appearance. "Oh, my god, can you all just _please_ tell me why you kidnapped me to the Ghost Zone?" All the water clinging to my clothes and hair evaporated in an instant, and I could all but taste the temperature rising around me. "I want answers, now!" 

"Did Shasta not tell you?" Izora inquired after swallowing a sip of her tea. So, I had been exactly right in my prediction of what she was doing. "We've graciously extended our hands in friendship to you, you ungrateful child."

"You call this 'friendship?'" I asked with another roll of my sphalerite eyes. 

"Considering how little we have done so far, yes," Pranav answered. He had changed forms again, this time into that of a cheetah. His spotted tail formed question marks in the air where he lay, front paws crossed over one another. "With all you have done to us, we have been _more_ than generous to you."

Kairomir's shiny, silver armor clanked ominously as he stepped forward. I couldn't help but notice how his right hand hovered over the hilt of his longsword, just in case. His voice sounded tinny and hollow coming from the inside of his helmet. "Despite how some of us are acting, this is a _peaceful_ meeting. We are entangled with matters that run far deeper than our quarrels with thou."

"The witches, right?" I asked, and he nodded gravely in reply. 

"Shasta tells us you were in pain when she brought you here," Mantua said, twirling a sewing needle the size of a spatula around and around between her fingers. "We believe a witch was searching for your true name."

"My true name-- like, my real identity?" I said as I spun around to address her directly. The seamstress ghost had her feet up on a floating chunk of Ghost Zone debris while regarding me coldly with her all-black, sclera-less eyes. 

"What else would I mean?" Mantua retorted. "Once a witch finds your living name, you are done for."

"How? And what the hell do witches have to do with ghosts?" I asked no one in particular. "All I know is that they're dangerous and out to get us."

"That about sums it up," Shasta commented under her breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her examining her nailbeds with obvious boredom. 

Lord Batron shook his head, leaning on his slender cane. "It is much more complex than that, dear Shasta. Relle, you may think of the witches as, well, natural-born ghost hunters. They have many advantages over us, the worst of which is the capacity to make a ghost their puppet if they discover their living name." 

~

"Endellion, slow down," Fan Liu ordered her pupil sternly as she watched him pace incessantly back and forth across the small study. "You are jumping back and forth between languages so much that it's hard to understand what you're saying."

"It-- It doesn't make any sense, Fan Liu!" he exclaimed after taking a second to settle down into English. "She's not-- I don't believe it-- this _cannot_ be real! Is it a ghost with impeccable cloaking abilities? Is she alive and possessed by a ghost?" Endellion sucked in a deep breath as his boulder opal eyes widened. "What if it's a ghost that has the power to turn _alive?_ " 

She couldn't help it; at such a crazy idea, Fan Liu snorted in quiet laughter. "My goodness, Endellion, that _can't_ be right. What _exactly_ did you see in that ghost's mind?" 

"It was... It was the name of someone I know," he stammered. His tan fingers found holds in his hair and all but destroyed his ponytail with his anxious carding. 

"Someone you knew? Oh, my--" she started to say in sympathy, but Endellion cut her off impatiently. 

"No, not someone I _knew_ , someone I _know. Currently_." It looked as if his face was in danger of permanently being stuck in a pensive frown. His brows were too low and close together to easily tell where they separated. "She's still alive-- I think. I don't know, I'm so confused. This doesn't make any sense!"

"Endellion, this is a _ghost_ ," Fan Liu insisted, taking him by the shoulders and forcing him to look her in her Chinese Writing Opal eyes. "It is little more than a deteriorated soul clinging to a lump of ectoplasmic residue. It does not know who it was, nor does it have the moral capacity of a living person."

"But I _know_ this one is different," Endellion countered, putting his hands on top of hers to push them off. "It must be a new type of ghost, one that we've never seen or read about before." 

Fan Liu sighed slowly in the hopes that some of her calmness would rub off on her pupil, if just for a moment. "Endellion, that seems unlikely. And even if that is true, then we are already one step closer to knowing exactly what this ghost is. You found its living name, right?"

"Yeah, I know who it is," he answered. 

"Then we will continue to learn the spell I am going to teach you. Once you gain control of it, you will have the chance to learn everything about it, and then you will have your answers." The gleam in her eyes was bright with excited anticipation. "I have _complete_ confidence in your abilities as a witch, Endellion."

"Wait-- did you say 'control of it?'" he echoed, lifting one eyebrow in confusion. 

"Yes, this is an ancient spell the great witches of our past used to learn what we know today about ghosts," she explained. "It will take a while for me to teach it to you, and I'm sure you won't get it right the first few times, but even one witch knowing this spell is a great asset to the entire coven."

She could have sworn she could see the gears spinning at breakneck speed in his brain as he processed this new information. "It's a mind control spell. For ghosts. I can take control of the ghost and make it tell me everything it knows."

"Exactly," Fan Liu said with a gentle pat on his cheek. "I can see you've had enough excitement for one day, though. We can pick up from here to--"

"No, I'm alright," he insisted firmly. "I want you to teach me this as soon as possible. I _have_ to know what this ghost is. Can we start after Dude leaves for the day?"

She smiled at that and nodded. "If you feel up to it, then yes. Maybe you should go upstairs and see how he is doing with Allie."

Kordelle agreed and left to do just that, leaving Fan Liu to take a seat at her workbench. With one elbow resting on the table and her cheek in her palm, she regarded the mirror with a cool expression. No handprints were ever left behind on its smooth surface because of its enchantment, but a rare blemish in the form of a tiny crack had somehow managed to make its way into the center of the glass. Fan Liu shook her head and waved a hand toward it, instantly repairing the crack before it could spread and cause any real problems. 

Kordelle, climbing the stairs one step at a time, leaned on the hand rail a little more than necessary as his mind reeled with so many new possibilities. What could this mean for the coven? If he mastered this spell as soon as he feasibly could, then he would have a treasure trove of new knowledge at his fingertips. 

He stopped just beyond the entrance to the living room when he heard Dude gasp with delight and let out a wordless shout. Something told Kordelle that the newcomer had just summoned his familiar for the first time. Hearing how happy his friend was, Kordelle knew immediately that he couldn't let this discovery slip and fall onto Dude's shoulders. There was no way he knew about the connection between Camry and Relle, right? 'He would have told me, I'm sure of it' Kordelle thought with conviction. 

"This is so cool!" Dude exclaimed. "I have to show Kordelle!"

"Show me what?" said teenager asked casually as he stepped into view and smiled. "How's it going in here?"

~

"Okay, so let me make sure I'm not confusing anything," I said after at least a good fifteen minutes of hearing the ghosts around me explain what the situation at hand entailed for all of us. "Witches and ghosts are enemies. They have the power to control us if they want to because we're ghosts and they have magic, apparently. They need our names from when we were alive if they want to do that, though, and they have to dig through our subconscious to find it because we don't know it ourselves."

"Pretty much, yeah," Shasta sighed, clearly bored, with her purple eyes lazily shut. 

"But what makes you so sure they got my name? I don't remember if I thought about my name before I passed out-- I was in too much pain to know up from down," I pointed out. "And besides, who's to say they can even control me at all if I'm still half alive?" 

"It's too much of a risk to leave to chance," Mantua insisted, and with a brisk motion her sewing needle embedded itself in the dirt between my feet. I couldn't help shrieking and jumping back in response, which pulled a few chuckles from the crowd. I glared hotly at her and didn't even bother with trying to tamp down on the fire flickering to life around my fists. "We are safe here in the Ghost Zone."

"Oh, you think so, huh?" I retorted sarcastically. "I think our definitions of 'safe' are _radically_ different if this is what you consider a safe environment. I can't stay here, guys. Not only do all of you hate my guts because I won't let you make a mess of my town, but I _do_ have a life to get back to on the other side of that portal. In fact, I'm sure I've been gone too long as it is, and I can only imagine how much hot water I'm in already."

"But your friend is a witch!" Bopper the clown piped up in his comical, overly theatrical voice. He pointed a gloved index finger in the air triumphantly, as if he had just delivered an amazingly impressive argument. "He could stab you in the back at _any_ time!"

"'He?'" I echoed, and the fire in my hands fizzled out so I could bring them close to my chest. As per the usual whenever I got anxious, my fingers tangled together while the whole bundle dug into the top of my sternum. "You don't mean _Dude_ , do you?"

"He's the one with the green hair and the undercut, right?" Shasta asked, and I nodded emphatically. "Yeah, that's the one. As far as I can tell, he's got opalescence out the wazoo."

" _No_. There's _no way_ he's a witch," I asserted. "Dude would never betray me, not like that. He's been my best friend since way before all of this ghost stuff happened!"

"Look, we're just calling it like we see it, doll," Russolo pointed out as he twisted one end of his thin mustache into a perfect curl to match its mirror image. His red eyes were fixed on a hand mirror, to absolutely no one's surprise. "Check him if you're not sure-- all opal eyes are a sure sign of a witch."

"Fine, I will, then," I said with more force than necessary behind my words. "But before I do, tell me how I can fight against a witch." 

Dead silence ensued, leading me to a rather grim conclusion. "There... _is_ a way to fight back against a witch, isn't there?" 

"We know not of any _definite_ ways," Kairomir began slowly.

"A witch's magic is specifically designed to destroy us, ectoplasm and all," Izora said as casually as an heiress twittering about the weather. "If you _did_ manage to find a way to fight a witch and _win_ , it would be by sheer luck alone."

'Time to stay up all night 'til the sun, then' I couldn't help but think in some remote corner of my mind. "I guess I'll keep you guys posted, then. And can I assume you won't be coming to Bailey Lake any time soon with this witchy threat hanging over our heads?"

"I wouldn't say we will leave the city alone _entirely_ ," Lord Batron admitted slyly, leaning on his tall cane in such a way that conveyed something slightly sinister. Typical. "However, it would be foolish to let ourselves fall into the clutches of a witch. I would speculate that they are only this active as of late because of the visit from our 'dear friend' Crom Cruach."

"And I already know that the only reason why there's a portal at the bottom of the lake because of my and Danny's fight with him," I mumbled under my breath. The memory of saving Danny from being eaten by the giant snake was a sweet one; I could still remember how good it had felt to slam my fists into the reptile's head and send him careening down under the water. That must have been when the permanent hole was punched through to the Ghost Zone's dimensional space. 

Pranav, still a cheetah for the time being, paused in lazily licking his paws to rise and stalk toward me. He stopped a few paces away, and we locked eyes. "I still do not think it is a good idea to just let her leave. It puts us _all_ in danger."

"I understand your concerns, Pranav, but we all agreed that we would allow her to go when we finished saying our piece," Batron reminded him. 

"Besides, if I do find a way to stand my ground against a witch, I'm sure you'll all be very keen on knowing it," I added confidently, my hands now balled up into fists on my hips. "And I can't exactly find out by being cooped up in the Ghost Zone."

One side of his feline lips pulled back in a half-hearted growl before he padded away to lay down where he had been for the past twenty or so minutes. Mantua reached down to pat him once on the head, but he snapped at her fingers in answer and forced her to pull them up to her chest. 

"Okay, well," I said after clearing my throat, "thanks for finally clearing up my confusion about all of this witchy business. I'm just gonna, y'know, _go_ and, uh, yeah. Don't worry, I'm not gonna let a witch get the best of me like that again. I'll keep a low profile or something."

" _Ahem_ ," Shasta coughed indicatively. When I looked over at her, she was raising her eyebrows in a way that made it clear I was forgetting something.

"Oh, right. And thanks for not letting me drown, Shasta," I added. 

"Don't worry, I'll be thinking of plenty of ways for you to make it up to me," she assured me. All I could do was awkwardly smile at that.

" _Right_... So, uh, meeting adjourned, I guess?" 

"If no one else has anything to say, then yes, we are done here," Lord Batron confirmed with a wave of his cane. 

I jumped up on the first of many tiles to take me back to the portal, which was in sight a few hundred feet or so above our heads. Shasta was at my side suddenly, the hem of her embellished skater dress fluttering with the momentum of flying over to me. She rolled her eyes and refused to look at me even as the rest of the group dispersed to return to their separate corners of the Ghost Zone. "What's up, Shasta?" I asked conversationally.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but... good luck," she ground out between clenched teeth. "You're gonna need it, I mean. These witches are probably gonna kick your ass, you know."

"Probably, if this has anything to say about it," I agreed with an obvious distaste in my tone as I indicated the injury on my left shoulder blade. Shasta grinned and slapped it with the palm of her hand, causing me to yelp more out of habit than pain. Wait-- it didn't _hurt?_

"The GZ heals witch wounds, dummy," she giggled at my shocked expression. " _Duh_." 

"Oh, har-har, very funny," I said, unamused. "Catch you later, Shasta." 

"Don't die before I can get my payback!" was the tactful answer she called after me as I jumped from tile to tile, heading toward the portal at the bottom of Bailey Lake. Past experience told me I needed to stay invisible after I got to the surface, then dry out on the beach with a burst of heat so I didn't look like I had just gone swimming. I did exactly that, then remained on land to plan out where to go from there. The way the late afternoon sun was all but gone over the horizon told me to expect some serious trouble from my parents; _of course_ time wasn't exactly linear between this dimension and the Ghost Zone. 

"Oh, this is just _great_ ," I groaned sarcastically.

~

"No, I know, Sadie," Eleanor assured her over the cordless home phone from where she stood in her kitchen, trying desperately to think of a reason why A, Camry wasn't home yet, and B, why she couldn't come to the phone right then. "The girls are busy upstairs-- I think they have a lot of homework and studying for final tests tomorrow. I've heard _plenty_ about how they're both stressed out over doing well on all of them."

"Still, I would like to talk to Camry, Ellie," Sadie persisted. "She hasn't responded to any of my texts this entire afternoon, and I'm worried she's ignoring me." A dejected sigh, then, "Heaven only knows she's still upset with me because I forced her to attend the cotillion. I don't understand, Ellie-- I had so much fun at _my_ cotillion! What could _possibly_ have changed since then?"

Oh, thank goodness, a new topic to distract her with for a little while. "Well, I of all people know how different we can be from our parents." An image of her devotely Catholic family back in Ireland floated past her mind's eye. "And we both know Camry is not the type of girl who will change her mind once it's made. First impressions are important, and after what I saw while picking them up on their first day..." She trailed off, her heart plummeting to the bottom of her stomach. 

"On their first day? What did you see?" Sadie asked quickly, and Eleanor couldn't help but wince at having said too much. At least they were only talking on the phone and not face to face. If that were the case, it would have become infinitely harder to sound as unbothered as she tried to be. "Did something happen?"

"Oh, their teacher was just being a bit too aggressive in her teaching methods," Eleanor said as flippantly as she could. "I pulled her aside and talked to her a bit, but I'm sure it didn't help Camry's first impression of her either way."

"Oh, jeez..." Sadie groaned. "Do you think I should get involved somehow?"

"I don't think you need to, Dee," Eleanor assured her, and this was honesty coming out of her mouth. "I've been keeping an eye out for more issues and I think I'll be able to handle anything. After all, we have to let our kids learn how to handle their issues themselves, right?"

Sadie blew out a huffy breath and seemed to be nodding, even though Eleanor could in no possible way see if she was or not. "You'll tell me the second something major comes up, right, Ellie? I don't want to be kept out of things if they involve Camry."

"Of course I would!" Mrs. Mahadeo promised. She was about to say more when two pairs of feet came stampeding down the stairs. A notably breathless Camry followed by a wide-eyed Saoirse turned a corner and dashed into the kitchen, which resulted in the shorter girl nearly knocking over a chair that wasn't pushed all the way into the dining room table. She came to a skidding halt next to Eleanor and clutched at her chest, obviously trying to catch her breath, before nodding indicatively. "Hey, Sadie? The girls just came down for a snack break, so here's Camry."

"Oh, good! Thanks, Ellie," Sadie said before the phone was passed to Camry's waiting hand. It could only be guessed that by sheer force of will alone she was able to sound completely normal the second she put the speaker up to her ear.

"Yeah, Mom?" Camry started. Not half an instant later, she was wincing and holding the phone away from her ear so as to ensure she would still be able to hear aanything by the time she turned twenty. "No, Mom-- my phone died while I was at school 'cause I forgot to charge it! ...I dunno why it would say that. Phones are weird sometimes. I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to make you worry. School? Yeah, it was fine, I guess. I'm not sure I'm ready for my French final tomorrow, though... Yeah, I know I've been studying for it a lot, but I keep forgetting what I've learned... Yeah, I tried that already, but Saoirse and I are making flash cards, so maybe those'll help. 

"It was... okay. I still hate it, but I guess Mrs. Bosch isn't being as mean as she was at the beginning. Mmhmm. Yeah. No, that's okay. Okay. Love you, too. Bye." 

_Beep!_ The call ended, and Camry replaced the phone in its cradle. Like a light switch being flicked on, she was back to panting as if she had just run three miles without stopping-- which was probably pretty close to exactly what had happened not five minutes ago. For good measure, she braced her hands on her knees, and her back heaved up and down with mighty breaths.

For slightly different reasons, Saoirse's heart was pounding a mile a minute as she split her gaze between her exhausted girlfriend and her clearly fed-up mother, the latter of whom was massaging the bridge of her nose wearily. To both their surprises, she didn't demand any sort of explanation when she spoke next. Standing there in the Mahadeos' kitchen, the two teens got the ultimate surprise of their young lives so far.

"Camry, I have tried to be supportive of your ghostly antics, but they're starting to make me look like a bad mother, and I don't appreciate it very much."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger~!! Muwahahaha, are you guys excited now? I know I am! Have another long chapter that was somehow written in the span of a day :D It's amazing what free time lets me do when I have the motivation.
> 
> If you guys want any information about the ghost enemy OCs in this chapter, let me know and I'd be happy to fill you in! I'm pretty proud of them, even if they're still in their early stages of development as characters. 
> 
> As always, your comments are like precious gold to my writing motivation, and I always treasure your feedback. Please leave some down below, and a vote doesn't hurt, either ;) See you in the next chapter!


	9. Chapter 9

"How's it going in here?" Kordelle asked as he appeared around a corner and came into view of the two witches occupying the living room. To his surprise, Allie had her hands clapped together in elation and Dude was staring at his hands in awe. Allie's familiar, a semi-transparent otter that loved to rest on her shoulders like a parrot, was jumping all around in excitement on the stretch of empty couch between Dude and Allie. 

The thirteen-year-old witch was beaming when she looked up to see Kordelle staring. The adorableness of her smile was only enhanced by her chubby cheeks and the port-wine stain that extended from her right cheek to halfway down her neck. "He did it, Kory! And it only took, like, six tries!"

Loosely curled up in Dude's palms was an almost entirely see-through second pair of hands, much to his confusion and ecstasy. "This is so cool! But... why a pair of hands? I thought I'd get an animal, like yours." 

Allie shook her head with a soft smile. "It doesn't have to be an animal for everyone. It's a projection of yourself, condensed into something simpler and easier to control," she explained. Her otter nestled itself into her lap so she could run her fingers through its soft fur. "And besides, you're kinda lucky to have _two_ hands instead of just one."

"I guess my capacity for high-fiving did just double," Dude snickered. "Isn't this _cool_ , Kordelle?"

"Very cool," he agreed, stepping further into the room to get a closer look at the newly formed familiar. "And it only took you six times to call it out? That is _seriously_ impressive." 

"Well, Allie really knows her stuff," Dude said with a gesture toward his younger teacher. 

She nodded in response to that, her long blonde waves shivering back and forth with the motion. "And Dude's a _ridiculously_ fast learner."

"What does _your_ familiar look like?" he asked Kordelle, the light of eagerness shining in his black opal eyes. "I wanna see!"

"Oh, it's a house wren," Kordelle answered, putting his hand out with the palm and fingers flat. A tiny shape, colored a light tan with bands of darker brown, flickered into existence almost immediately. The adorable bird ruffled its feathers and twittered, filling the room with a soothing song. "I don't bring him out all that much, but he likes to sit on my head."

As if on cue, the house wren flitted up to nestle in Kordelle's blond hair and used its beak to make the charm in his ponytail jingle. It sang pleasantly in tune with the sound for a few seconds before settling down in the strands of Kordelle's loose hair. Allie giggled and held up a hand to grab Dude's attention. "C'mon, gimme five. You did so great!"

"Yeah-heah!" Dude crowed, but when he moved his own hand up to accept the high-five, his familiar mimicked the motion and got there first. The brisk contact of the newly formed projection on something real made him flinch; the sensation was so strange, not to mention mildly painful. "Oh, whoa, that was weird. And ow."

"Are you okay?" she asked, concern pulling her eyebrows closer together. "Your familiar isn't very strong, so you have to be careful with how much you use it."

"Think of it like using a muscle that's been in a cast for a long time," Kordelle offered, taking a seat on the arm of the couch on Dude's right. His house wren was still sitting atop his head quietly. "You're going to have to put it to work if it's going to become as strong as your other limbs."

"But it doesn't just stop there!" Allie squealed. "With enough work, it can be even _stronger_ than you are! If I wanted her to, my otter could run straight through a wall and knock it down with barely any effort at all."

" _No way_ ," Dude said, his eyes bugging. Allie nodded emphatically. "Oh, that is _so_ cool! Thanks so much for helping me, Allie. I'm definitely gonna have to practice summoning these when I get home."

Kordelle and Allie shared a sudden, silent look before the latter spoke up. "Are you sure your house is safe enough to practice magic in?"

"Remember, we have to keep this a secret from _everyone_." A shock of fear suddenly darted through Endellion's chest as he realized that there was a very real possibility that Dude had told his friends this secret even though he had made a promise not to. Knowing what Kordelle now knew about Camry and Relle, a breach like that could spell certain doom for the coven! "You haven't told your friends about any of this, right?"

"Nah, of course not," he answered breezily. "I get how important it is to keep all of this a secret." His familiar disappeared without any sort of warning, and he frowned at his empty hands. "Aww..."

Endellion resisted the urge to audibly sigh; he had detected no lies whatsoever.

"You'll get better," Allie assured him with a gentle laugh and a pat on his upper arm. "But be as careful as possible when you're practicing. Make sure all your windows are sealed off, and keep your doors locked. Actually-- Kory, do you have any warding charms you could give him?"

"Probably," Kordelle said, and with a motion to Dude to get up as well, they made their way to the staircase. "Let's go take a look."

~

"Camry, I have tried to be supportive of your ghostly antics, but they're starting to make me look like a bad mother, and I don't appreciate it very much." 

It was like a circus clown had jumped out of a giant cake: the shock was apparent on their faces, everyone was at least a little bit uncomfortable, and the one who had orchestrated the event was suddenly worried she had made a bad decision. If she wasn't already half dead, how long Camry stopped breathing might have been a bit worrying. Saoirse gaped, her jaw going slack before she used a hand to cover her mouth. Eleanor Mahadeo grimaced at their expressions and looked at her clenched hand resting on the countertop.

"Wh... _What_ ghostly antics--?" Camry eventually tried to ask in a feeble attempt to play the innocent, but a look from Mum that said "Don't even _try_ to lie to me" silenced her question before she could even finish. 

"How long have you known?" Saoirse whispered. "When did you find out? Is that why you covered for us to Mrs. Bosch the other day?"

Mum sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly through her nose before answering. "For quite a while, back during the Crom attack, and yes, it is why I covered for you both. I had just read the Ghost Watch post about Relle appearing to a fight downtown when I was on the lift to come get you both."

As pale as she already was, Camry's complexion turned ashen as the realization dawned on her. "You-- You knew when we were talking at Delta Pin. How? _Saoirse_ didn't even believe me when I flat-out told her!"

Mum had to smile at that ever so slightly. "You called me "Mrs. Mahadeo," but I was almost certain no one had told you my name beforehand. I also heard you call me "Mum" under your breath when I first walked over, and the look on your face really did say what you were thinking. I couldn't understand what I was seeing right away, but I definitely recognized you on a subconscious level." 

A faint flush of color rushed into Camry's cheeks out of shame. How had she been so careless? Of course she had given herself away in a moment of longing and weakness. She really had no one to blame but herself.

Then, as she looked down at the floor to try and hide her ashamed expression behind one hand, Camry was surprised to feel a pair of strong, familiar arms pull her into an inviting chest. "I can't even imagine what happened to make you this way, Cam, but I'm proud of what you've been doing with it."

The shorter girl's head jerked up and she stared with wide iolite eyes at Mum. "You're not-- you're not mad at me?"

"Why would I be _mad?_ " Mum asked while placing a gentle hand on top of her blonde hair. "I'm confused, sure, and definitely worried about how much danger you're putting yourself in, but I am still very proud of you. You've saved so many people already since Crom."

"I..." Camry trailed off and leaned into Mum's embrace more, returning it wholeheartedly. A soft sniffle drifted on the wind of the silent kitchen, prompting Saoirse to put a hand on her girlfriend's shoulder

"What's wrong?" she asked softly, receiving eye contact out of the corner of Camry's eye when she turned her head ever so slightly. 

"I dunno," Camry cried, feeling the tears coming on stronger and stronger. "It just-- it feels so good to finally tell someone else." 

Mum said nothing even as she ran her fingers through her second daughter's hair and held her close. Saoirse joined in, putting her arms around both her mother and best friend. They stayed like that for a minute or so, just soaking in the happiness of finally being able to tell the truth to one another. As difficult as it is to be a superhero, the emotional burden of keeping it secret from the people closest to you is just as hard to bear, if not harder. When the three of them let go, Camry wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands and breathed out a deep sigh that took the weight on her shoulders with it. 

"Do you think I should tell my parents about this, too?" she asked, but was surprised to see Mum shake her head in answer.

"I do, but not yet. After the conversation I had with Sadie, I don't think she needs anything else to worry about. Wait until after the cotillion, and then we can explain it all to them."

Saoirse had been relatively quiet for most of the revelation, but she spoke up then with a question that had been weighing on her conscience for quite some time. "So, Mum, are you gonna, like, make us stop fighting ghosts?" 

A quiet chortle escaped Mrs. Mahadeo at the notion. To their surprise, she shook her head again. "Do you really think I could stop you two from doing that? I'm sure you could just sneak out like you always do." That last part was directed at Camry, who found herself at the business end of a finger pointed at her chest. "But I know how you two work together, and I'm sure you'd be better off by each other's side than apart. Still, it does worry me how dangerous fighting those ghosts must really be, so I might start making sure you're being more careful."

"How so, exactly?" the half-ghost girl asked warily. The idea of a parent butting into their ghost fighting didn't sit well for rather obvious reasons.

"I'm not sure yet, but I think a good starting point would be for you to touch base with me after a fight so I know if anyone's hurt," Mum began, ticking that item off on her fingers. "That's what worries me most of all. I won't stop you three, but I want you to know I'm here if you need me." 

"Aww, Mum!" Saoirse cheered, touched to her core by the heartfelt solidarity. "Yes, we'll definitely let you know how we're doing after a fight."

A sudden lull in the talking jolted Camry out of the stupor she had tossed herself into. "Oh, yeah! Yeah, of course we will! This means so much to us, Mum-- you have no idea!"

It was the mention of "you three" that had reminded her of something that had escaped her attention for a short stretch of time. Right, the new information about Dude, her other best friend. This was definitely something she'd need to talk to Saoirse about the second they found the time to be alone together. 

"Alright, but just to be sure, is there anything _else_ you want to tell me?" Mum asked. The way she kept looking back and forth between the two teens with a knowing lift of one eyebrow made it abundantly clear that she already had a particular little nugget in mind. The implication didn't immediately sink in Camry's brain, but Saoirse coughed into her fist and looked away, a faint heat tinting the apples of her cheeks. 

"Mmhmm," Mum hummed, looking more or less satisfied. "You have my blessing, but avoid what is haram." She winked and adjusted the stretch of fabric underneath her chin before leaning in to plant a peck on each of the girls' foreheads. "I assume I don't have to go into detail, mm?"

"I think we get the idea, Mum," Saoirse coughed again, definitely redder in the cheeks than she was a few seconds ago. "Thanks for, uh, not being mad that we didn't tell you."

"We--? Uh-- _oh!_ Oh, oh, oh," Camry said rapidly as she finally caught on. "Right, yes, uhm. Wow, okay." Was the room's temperature rising a few degrees, or was it just Camry? The correct answer: both. 

"Are you okay?" Mum gasped, making to put her hands on Camry's cheeks but pulling back for fear of getting burned. "Your face is turning _orange!_ "

" _Jeez_ ," Camry breathed, hiding her face in her hands in the hopes that it would disperse some of the embarrassment taking such a bright physical form. "Sorry, you just caught me off guard with that." 

Saoirse stuck a finger in the space between her girlfriend's pinky and ring fingers to poke her warm cheek gently. "Aww, it's okay. We should've expected Mum would see it from the very beginning."

~

"Great job today, Dude," Allie said in an impressively chipper tone as she and Kordelle were seeing Dude out the door. Behind him, the sun was low in the sky and sending rays of beautiful golden light into the sparse cloud cover. "Are you coming over again tomorrow? I didn't get to show you all of my plants yet."

"I think I will be, although I'm sure I'll need an excuse to give my mom in case she starts asking questions," he said with a hint of anxious mirth in his tone. "But I _definitely_ wanna see all your plants! They look like they've taken forever to grow so big and beautiful."

"Not with magic, it isn't," she answered with a shrug. 

"Isn't it time to water the sprouts again?" Kordelle asked her with a knowing gleam in his eye. Allie gasped and rushed off, slamming the front door closed without thinking about it. The rest of the house was seamlessly cut off from the outside world, including both boys standing on the front porch. It had to be the work of magic-- what else?-- that kept their home so secretive and remote. 

"I, uh, wanted to clue you in on something, mate," Kordelle began slowly, as if he were unsure of exactly how to say what he wanted to say. 

"What's up?" Dude asked, blissfully cheerful after a full afternoon of successful learning. 

"Don't say anything to anyone, not even Allie," the much more experienced witch said. "You're doing really well with your magic so far, but there can be some... side effects."

"Side effects?" Dude repeated in a stage whisper, his black opal eyes widening. "Like _what?_ "

"It's not like what you're thinking!" Kordelle assured him quickly. "All I mean is some witches can develop a nasty habit of accidentally using their magic when they don't mean to. It just takes practice to avoid, but with us being at school and all, surrounded by so many people _all the time_ , there's just so many chances we're taking with it."

The fear melted from Dude's face and shoulders, which visibly relaxed when the idea that he was going to grow a third arm was extinguished. "Oh, is _that_ all," he chuckled. "Don't worry about it, man! I think I've got this pretty much locked down. I haven't even told my sister yet, and we tell each other _everything_."

'Almost everything' he had to amend silently. 

"I don't doubt it, but... still." Kordelle gestured with an open hand to his friend and closed his fist, looking down at it for a brief second. "I know you're not going to like this idea, but I think it would be good for you to try and distance yourself from Camry and Saoirse for a little while."

"Huh?" Dude lifted both eyebrows, incredulous, before indignantly folding his arms across his chest. "Well, you're right about one thing: I don't like that idea."

"I know, I know," Kordelle said, trying to placate him with both hands up in a sort of "calm down" manner. "I have a good reason for it, though. You and I both understand how hard it is to be magic users in a non-magical world. We risk so much just by being ourselves for even a _moment_. I've seen how close you three are, which is why I'm afraid that something might slip." 

Dude's frown deepened, and Kordelle could see his arm muscles tightening as he squeezed himself a little tighter to keep the anger buried inside. After a few heavy seconds of silence, during which only the scampering of a squirrel along the nearby tree branches disrupted the quiet, he spoke. "So, you're saying I shouldn't spend time with them anymore."

"Not for forever," Kordelle was quick to point out hopefully. "Just until we're sure you have a good enough handle on your magic. And, after all, it doesn't seem like you've been spending much time with them anyway. Lately, I mean. They're both so busy with their cotillion nonsense... and each other."

"I... guess it _has_ kinda felt like being a third wheel," Dude admitted aloud before he could stop himself. Caught up in his own feelings of abjection, it didn't even occur to him that Kordelle _probably_ shouldn't have known about the two girls' somewhat discreetly hidden relationship. 

That was exactly what Kordelle wanted to hear. "Right? Give them some space-- I'm predicting it'll do everyone some good." 

He didn't need to be psychic to sense Dude's trepidation, however. "Are you sure? It's never felt weird to be around them before, I mean."

"Well, they haven't had time to spend with you, right? It's that cotillion," he noted. "We can see how you're doing after that's over. When is it, anyway?" 

"I think it was next Friday, during spring break." The idea of a definite ultimatum did seem to brighten his spirits a little. It wasn't going to be for forever, and it would work out well for everyone in the end, like Kordelle had said. "I guess that _does_ leave a little bit of spring break left over for us three to hang out... Or us four, if you wanna join us, Kordelle. It'd be fun~!" 

"I guess it depends on how much studying I'm doing," Kordelle answered in a notably noncommital way. "Even I still have a lot of spells to learn." 

'One spell in particular, as luck would have it.' 

"Do you want me to walk with you part of the way home, mate?" 

Dude shook his head with a grateful smile. "Nah, it's cool. Allie already taught me about some defensive spells, anyway."

"Don't use any magic around people, though," Kordelle warned him sternly. Dude metaphorically waved his concerns away with a flippant hand and morphed it into a wave 'goodbye.' 

"I won't, I won't. See you tomorrow!" 

With both hands casually stuffed into his jacket pockets, Dude started the journey home with a surprisingly merry gait, considering the heavy burden that had suddenly been placed on his heart. To stop spending what little time he already had with his two best friends didn't sit well with him for rather obvious reasons. They were his best friends! And besides, if anyone could understand and accept the sudden development of his magical abilities, it would definitely be Camry and Saoirse. Those two had been through so much shenanigans with him already, so what would stop them from accepting who he was? 

'Although... she's half ghost, too, and ghosts and witches are supposed to be enemies' he realized. A core of his own, solid and oaken like the pit of a peach, ground deeper in his intestines as dread found a home inside of him. Dude quickly rolled his eyes and blew out an exasperated breath. 'Oh, please, she's not going to become my _enemy_. That's such a stupid idea! Besides, we barely belong to those categories anyway.'

But the dread didn't go away. As a matter of fact, it only worsened when he approached the back of the school and found the hidden niche for all the conduit testors and magical journals. On specific book in there was on his mind, though he had no concrete ideas on how to get his hands on it in the first place. Kordelle had made it clear he didn't ever want it leaving its hiding place, but this was definitely for a good cause! He had to tell someone else, and who better than another possible witch like himself? 

Dude stared long and hard at the wall as the setting sun's ray grew dimmer and dimmer. The air gained a certain chill about it that was both refreshing and somewhat of a shock to breathe in. He tried to conjure up the memories of Kordelle opening the hidden cupboard; there had been little inscriptions that appeared and disappeared-- kind of like marquis lights-- when he'd put his hand on the tiles. They outlined the hole's opening before a seam appeared and allowed Kordelle to remove the false wall. 

'I guess the first step would be to put my hand on the wall' Dude surmised, and with little thought to caution he did exactly that in where he thought the panel was. 

Nothing happened. 

His eyebrows knit together, and determination flowed through his veins. "Okay, okay. Next, uh... Think, think, think. What did Allie say about energies?" 

The lesson was fresh in his mind, having taken place only a couple of hours beforehand. _"Magic is energy, and as witches we all have a connection to this energy. You make it your own when you reach for it and grab on-- that's how you use it in the first place. It's also how you make your familiar come to life."_

'If I reach for the magic in this spell and make it my own, will it let me open the wall?' he wondered. For good measure, he took a quick second to look in all directions, even up and down, before pressing the sides of his hands together like he was trying to hold onto a pile of sand. That metaphor was similar to how grabbing onto magic felt; the energy, so infinitesimal in nature and yet so vast in saturating the entire world, was like the grains of sand at the beach-- if the whole world was one gigantic beachfront. Gripping too tightly would force it to slip through his fingers, and splaying his fingers too far apart would allow the magic to tumble through with ease. Dude had to find that happy medium between the two if he was going to summon his familiar again. 

He didn't bother with closing his eyes this time. After successfully managing to bring the pair of hands into reality more than once back at the coven house, he didn't feel the need to concentrate quite so intensely. As per Allie's instructions, he reached inside himself mentally, calling out an image of his personified force of will, and breathed life into it. The hands flickered into existence slowly, taking on a transparency that didn't seem as obvious compared to the first time he had made it work. Their spindly arms tapered into twin string-like wisps that attached at his shoulders. Dude beamed at the sight of them and spared another glance at the wall.

"Okay, guys," he said to his familiars, which mimicked his pantomime of putting his palms on the dingy, pockmarked concrete. "Ready?" 

~

The front door clicked shut quietly behind Dude as he stepped into the cramped apartment foyer and didn't bother with taking his shoes off. He had too much on his mind to be thinking about formalities like that! He had a very special book to show his sister, one that would change _everything!_

When Dude opened the door to his and Ariadna's room, he saw that the curtain partition was pulled away so the separate spaces were no longer divided. Ari herself was seated on the window seat at the other side of the room. An evening breeze made the curtain billow and sway even as it was bunched up to one side. Strangely enough, Ari's hearing aids were held loosely in her hand, the right one, as she turned her left ear up to the clear sky beyond the window. Her eyes were closed in an almost serene way, but tears streamed down her cheeks and dripped from the apex of her chin, where they landed in her lap. 

At the door, Dude hesitated on what to do. It felt like he was intruding on something private, something that wasn't meant for his eyes. A strange pressure had fallen on the atmosphere in the bedroom, leaving a faint ringing in his ears that he barely registered. Even so, this was his room as much as it was Ariadna's, and his curiosity was piqued. What in the world was his twin sister _doing?_

With the book awkwardly stuffed into his pocket, he approached with slow footsteps and sank down on the other half of the cushioned seat in front of Ari, wedging his right shoulder blade against the wall behind him. By squinting, he could just barely catch a glimpse of the waxing moon rising over the horizon. Was it already that late? He hadn't meant to take so long in getting home. What a good thing it was that Mamá was still at work, though she would likely be home any minute. 

Making sure to be gentle so as not to startle her, Dude settled one hand on her arm and snapped her out of her reverie. A gasp flew out of her mouth, and it took her a few seconds to blink the tears out of her eyes and look at him. Dude offered her an apologetic smile before his expression morphed into one of concern. "Are you okay?" he signed. "You're crying. What's wrong?" 

"Nothing, nothing," she answered quickly, her fingers flying with practiced ease even as she wiped the saltwater tracks from her face. "Why are you home so late?"

"I was busy," he signed. "I want to show you something." 

"What is it?" Ari asked. In the dim light offered only by the evening sky, the opalescent bits of her white opal eyes shimmered mystically. She didn't look at him as he pulled the book out of his pocket; her gaze was on the moon, still drifting higher in the sky. A forlorn look settled on her dainty features and was barely deterred when Dude put the book in front of her face. 

She read the cover's title and shrugged as if it didn't make an ounce of difference. Just as Dude was starting to worry that Ariadna was going blind, too, she sucked in a sharp breath and snatched the paperback from his hands, angling it differently so as to get a better look at the title. Dude watched her mouth the words silently to herself once, twice, three times, four-- wait, was she _scared?_ Why were her eyes so wide, like she had just seen a ghost? 

Well, given the circumstances, that probably wasn't the right expression to use for this situation. 

"Where did you get this?" Ariadna signed emphatically, which should have been difficult with a book in her hands had she not had years of practice backing her skills. The intense look in her eyes was unnervingly urgent, to say the least.

"A friend," was his answer. "You and I are _witches_ , Ari!"

Ariadna's response to that was a forlorn sigh. Using the pads of her fingertips, she ran her hand down the cover of the book and closed her eyes. Then she shook her head and returned her gaze to her brother. "I know."

"You... You already know?" he asked, only just barely remembering to sign as he uselessly spoke as well. 

She nodded, her expression grave. "I've always known," she signed, her motions subdued. "This is dangerous, Dude."

"How long have you known?" he started to ask when his hands froze in midair. The front door had opened and closed, admitting a familiar pair of weary footsteps. 

Ari rose from the window seat suddenly and dashed out the bedroom door, the guide book to witch beginners still in hand. A thrill of fear shot through Dude's chest; he had only meant to show Ariadna, not their mom! What would she say when she saw something like magic? He leaped up and was right on her heels, but as soon as he left his room he saw Ari holding up the book so Mamá could see the title. 

The surprise on her face only lasted for half a moment before that same sort of forlorn sorrow replaced it. "Hijo... Who told you?" she asked aloud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ba-BAM! Plot twist! What are we going to see from here? You'll find out in the next chapter (once I have it actually written up, haha ^_^') 
> 
> So, I just wanted to thank you guys for your support, and I would love to see some comments down below if you do feel so inclined. See you when I upload again!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RECAP: 
> 
> The surprise on her face only lasted for half a moment before that same sort of forlorn sorrow replaced it. "Hijo... Who told you?" she asked aloud.

Her somber question left Dude sputtering as indignation immediately filled him to the brim. "Wha-- Buh-- I-- _What?_ What do you mean, ' _who told you?_ ' It sounds like it should've been _you_ telling me about all this witch business!"

"Keep your voice down, hijo," Maria Hinojosa chastised him wearily as she moved to set down her purse on a small hallway table. "The walls are thin."

" _Mamá_ ," Dude said sharply. " _What_ is going on? You mean, you knew all about this the _whole time?_ " 

She sighed heavily, and in that one sigh the weight of two decades of struggle could be heard as plain as day. "Come into the kitchen and I'll make you some champurrado." 

"I don't want any," he insisted, crossing his arms over his chest defiantly. "What I _want_ is an explanation." 

Ari watched her family talk and read their lips to get the gist of the exchange. She didn't put her hearing aids back in, though, and resolved to be something of a passive presence unless she found an opportunity to speak up. Maria padded into the kitchen anyway, her socked footsteps quiet on the linoleum, and began gathering the ingredients and tools for her hot chocolate recipe. Dude followed, still saying how he didn't want any champurrado, but didn't try to stop his mother. 

"Mamá," he started to say, but was cut off by Maria turning to look at him. The expression she wore, so tired and crestfallen, was enough to make him regret how angrily he had been speaking to her. 

"Let me find the words, and I'll explain everything," she bargained, setting a saucepan on the stove's bottom left burner, the only one that worked out of all four. Dude said nothing in response, choosing to just sit in the dining table chair that was closest to the small kitchen. Their apartment was not very large at all, so he was really only a few feet away and perfectly within earshot. 

Ariadna sank down in the chair to his left and rested her temple against his shoulder as a sign of affection and solidarity; he didn't outwardly respond to the contact, but his tense posture relaxed ever so slightly with the familiar gesture. Even so, his blood was close to boiling in his veins. Why the hell had they lied to him this whole time? How could they have kept such a huge aspect of himself secret all his life? He had returned home that night expecting to be the bearer of an amazing discovery, and now he had been relegated to the spot of a young boy about to be lectured by his mother. 

This evening had definitely not gone according to plan.

~

**hey**

The text notification came in the form of Saoirse's phone vibrating on her nightstand. Thanks to many months of having to respond quickly in case of an emergency, the device was in her hands before the vibration had fully ended. She opened the text window and typed out an answer.

_What's up? You okay?_

**yeah...**

Saoirse raised a skeptical eyebrow at that. _C'mon, tell me what's wrong, cammie_

**Well... I didn't get to tell you earlier cuz my parents picked me up (also I might be grounded after the cotillion just fyi)  
But there was something I wanted to yell you  
*tell**

_Okay, go ahead. Or do you want to come over?_

There was a pause in their reply rhythm, during which Saoirse guessed Camry was deliberating over what to do. They did have school the next morning, and with it already being past midnight, the consequences of staying up so late would be obvious by the time the day officially started. However, the likelihood that Camry was texting so late because of something unimportant was low, and if it couldn't wait until the next morning then there wasn't much for helping the situation. 

Saoirse's phone had gone dark without receiving a reply, but then another vibration made the cell shiver in her hands while the screen lit up again. The text preview was simple, displaying two words: **knock knock**

A gloved hand reached through her closed window and waved to her before it was followed by the rest of her girlfriend's ghostly form. Camry, faintly glowing with luminous ethereality, stepped into Saoirse's messy bedrooom and changed back into her blonde-haired, iolite-eyed self. Saoirse sighed through her nose, an amused smile on her lips, and said in a whisper, "I know our houses aren't far apart, but that was almost _too_ fast."

"I know, but it's been bugging me all afternoon," Camry explained in a similar tone of voice. She sank down on the edge of the bed after lifting up one of Saoirse's many blankets and wrapping herself up in the quilt around her shoulders. Saoirse sat up, phone still in hand but forgotten for the time being, and scooted closer without throwing off her cocoon of warmth. Camry, of course, was something like a living space heater herself, but Saoirse had always preferred being too warm to being too cold. 

"Okay, what's going on?" Saoirse asked. Camry didn't immediately reply, instead choosing to reach out and take her girlfriend's hand in a loose grasp.

"While I was in the Ghost Zone today-- yesterday-- I was told some things about the witches," she began. Her voice cracked with barely restrained emotion, which perplexed Saoirse ever so slightly. 

"Yeah, and? What did they tell you?" she prompted gently. 

Camry drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly through her mouth. "Well... fighting a witch really can be suicide, for one thing. Their magic is specifically tailored to destroy ghosts. And..."

Saoirse squeezed Camry's hand, which then began to run a thumb over the hill of her index finger's last knuckle almost meditatively. "And... they said that Dude is a witch, too."

Pink tourmaline irises were all but fully exposed in the darkness of the bedroom as Saoirse gaped. "He-- Wait, _what?_ Dude is a-- hold on a sec, Cam." She pulled her hand free to put a pointer finger up in a sort of "hang on and let me process this, so don't say anything yet" kind of manner. "You're telling me that our best friend is a _witch_ , a practitioner of _magic_ and an enemy to _you_." 

"I mean... I don't want to think that he's my enemy," Cam meandered awkwardly, her gaze cast down to the blankets bunched up around Saoirse's knees and feet. "But the ghosts told me that something called 'opalescence' is a sure sign of a witch and that Dude has a _lot_ of it. I'm not really inclined to believe them 'cause, well, duh, they're my real enemies, but it's been so _weird_ lately. And I'm pretty sure I got attacked by a witch right before I got pulled into the GZ." 

"You were? Wait, you're 'pretty sure?' What exactly happened?" Saoirse shuffled around a little bit to draw closer and lean forward so as to take it all in a little bit better. As Camry recounted how the air had changed in the same way it had when she and Lord Batron had been fleeing from the seemingly sourceless explosions threatening to blast them out of the sky, the half-ghost could feel her certainty dwindling. So much of this sounded crazy, even to someone more or less used to dealing with a lot of crazy things on an almost daily basis. Even so, she had experienced it firsthand, so why should she let her anxiety make her doubt the past?

When the story was over and Camry awaited some sort of response, Saoirse took a few seconds to herself to mull over the newly presented information. All of this was definitely suspicious and would require more information before any kind of decision for action could be made. "We need to find out if the ghosts are lying or not."

"So, like, we try to see if Dude really is a witch?" Camry asked, and Saoirse nodded. 

"Yeah, we can't figure out any sort of plan unless we know exactly what's going on," she explained to her rapt audience of one. "If Dude really is a witch, we'll talk it over with him and maybe figure out why he never told us. If he's not, then the ghosts were lying to you and we have to go find the _real_ witch that's been attacking you-- not that _Dude_ is the witch that's been attacking you, of course. He'd never do that."

A faint stirring elsewhere in the house forced both teens to freeze and hold their breaths. The distinct sound of a faucet being turned on and a cup filling with tap water drifted from down the hallway; it must be Aidan or Liam, Saoirse's twin younger brothers, getting a drink. When it was clear that he had finished and gone back to bed, their conversation resumed in even softer volumes. 

"Okay, I agree with that," Camry began, "but I don't know the first thing about finding a witch. How would we do that?"

Saoirse frowned, resting her chin on the heel of her palm while her elbow dug into the flesh of her thigh. "Well... maybe it's more of a matter of letting a witch find _you_." 

"They haven't had any trouble so far," Camry muttered, unappreciative of the recent past's events. 

"Sure, but all of those times have involved them not actually revealing themself," Saoirse pointed out. "So, that means we have to figure out a way to make the witch need to reveal themself. We still need more information, though. Just going by what the ghosts said isn't enough of a lead." 

"If I get the chance, I can ask for more info from one of them," Camry admitted. "And maybe Dude knows something, too." 

"That'll be our first priority," Saoirse decided with a firm nod. "Tomorrow, we'll just ask him flat-out about this whole witch business."

Camry nodded as well, a soft smile on her face that the weak light from the window revealed despite the darkness. "Okay. Thanks, Saoirse. I'll let you go back to sleep now."

"It's okay," Saoirse giggled, scooting closer just a couple more inches to hug the shorter girl for a moment. "And try not to worry yourself too much over this tonight. We'll figure out what's going on-- I'm sure of it."

"As long as at least _one_ of us thinks so," Camry almost said, but held her tongue in order to not sound like a petulant brat. Needless to say, the anxiety caused by this new and threatening mystery had already caused her to lose more than a couple hours of sleep, and it had corroded a fair amount of her patience and hope. Just the vague memory of an enormous pressure in her head, alienating her thoughts from her own brain and pouring foreign fire into her veins, was enough to make her want to curl up into a ball and never return to the world as Relle again. 

Even so, Camry squeezed back and smooched her girlfriend's cheek before rising to her feet. "I'll see you later, Seersh. Sleep well."

"You, too," she replied, waving gently as her girlfriend, once more with blue hair and sphalerite eyes, phased through the window and disappeared into the moonslit spring night. 

~

The mug of champurrado made a solid clinking sound against the dining room table when Maria set it in front of her fuming son. The chocolatey beverage was still very hot, and steam wafted into the air above the cup. Maintaining his earlier statement that he didn't want any, Dude refused to take it right away and instead ignored its very existence. Instead, he settled his unwavering attention on his mother, who sat down across from him and folded her hands on the tabletop. 

"Mijo... you have every right to be angry," she began slowly, as if she was still running through what she wanted to say word by word so as not to misspeak. 

Dude snorted quietly in derision at that. 'Damn right I do' he thought, but didn't dare say it out loud. 

Maria sighed, and not for the first time that night. "Do you remember living in Nevada all those years ago, before we moved to Bailey Lake?"

"Not really," he answered, though he resisted the urge to raise his pierced eyebrow. What did that have to do with any of this?

"I liked living in Nevada, and you both did, too," Maria explained. "It was similar to Mexico in a lot of ways, and there were so many nice people. I would probably not be speaking English this well if I hadn't been taught so much by our neighbors." 

A certain foreboding feeling fell over the room; obviously, something must have happened to make them pack up and leave such a reportedly great place. 

"But then... Ariadna's powers manifested one day, while you both were at school. We had to leave before your father's coven caught wind of it."

Boom, the truth bomb had landed a direct hit. As per their small family's usual habit, their speaking was accompanied by subtle, almost unconscious signing so as to easily include Ariadna in the conversation-- not that she couldn't also read lips, but it was kinder to just use sign language. Maria had been doing just that, and Ariadna sucked in a quiet gasp at the news. Dude started in his seat and found himself leaning forward a bit more, his eyes wide and round. 

"Our _father's coven?_ " he repeated in a flabbergasted half-whisper. 

Maria nodded, wringing her hands as she looked between her two children. "It's so hard to explain, but... he actually wanted kids very much. He wanted them so badly that... he was seeing many different girls at once, trying to populate his coven as much as possible." 

The sensation of rising bile sparked at the back of Dude's throat while Ariadna animatedly feigned gagging. Their father had been cultivating a harem in secret just to make his coven bigger? And their mother had been an unwitting pawn in all of that? How could he be so despicable before they had ever had the chance to meet him? 

Maria shook her head suddenly after a short stretch of contemplative silence. "I had no idea what he was doing, but I should have known. He would only really visit me when the second and seventh moons were full. When I told him I was pregnant, his first reaction was to ask if I was having twins-- not excitement, not even _dread_. Just "You're having twins, right?" The signs were everywhere, but I was so young..." 

This world of theirs had an interesting feature that, upon its discovery, had quickly become a great help for would-be parents looking to have children of their own. If impregnation occurred on a night when the second and seventh moons were both full and at least in part visible, then the chances of having twins was almost guaranteed to be 100%. It was something couples planned for or around, depending on whether they wanted twins or not. 

The still-warm mug made a slight grating vibration as Dude pushed it aside and reached a hand out to his mother. He and Ari could see the tears brimming in their mother's eyes as she told the story, but there was so little they could do to stop them other than to offer some form of comfort. Maria unlaced her fingers and grasped his offered hand firmly for a handful of seconds, but then took it back after composing herself; she would need both to sign. 

"I found out the things he and his coven, Estrellas del Dia, did soon after that, and I knew I couldn't let him funnel the two of you into lives like that. My original plan was to have you both in America so he wouldn't have any political hold on you two to pull you back down there, but... Ricardo was very smart. I think he must have known my plans, because if I ever went too far he was there to turn me back around."

Another jolt of surprise struck Dude through the chest; he had never actually learned his father's name before. Of _course_ it was Ricardo, but... why? Why would Dude's mother name him after such a terrible-sounding man? 

She must have caught the look on his face. "He made me swear on your names almost as soon as he found out I was pregnant with you both. Magic might have been involved-- I never was sure when he used it on me or not-- so I didn't take the chance to name you two anything else." 

"Oh," Dude whispered. Well, it made sense, in a way; it also made a certain amount of sense for why he never was called by his actual first name. Maria had always called him her "little dude" or "little man," and "Dude" had stuck with him while growing up until it felt like his real name. 

"But--" he started to say, then stopped and rethought his question, "but what happened in Nevada? Ari's magic?"

"I touched a monument for the native people of Nevada while we were on a field trip to a museum," Ariadna signed, her white opal eyes, so pale and mysterious, gaining a faint gleam that indicated a haunting memory. "And I heard its history." 

"You... You _heard_ its _history?_ " he asked aloud in sync with his baffled signing. 

"I have a hearing conduit," she explained with a shrug of her shoulders. "My specialization is time. I'm not good at controlling it yet, but I can hear the past if I focus on something _really_ hard." 

"I... Whoa," he murmured, eyes as round as the moon Ari had been listening to barely half an hour ago. If she had been taking in the history that the moon had 'seen,' it would explain why she had been crying. That history must be enormous, not to mention brimming with sorrow. 

"What are your witch traits?" Maria inquired, snapping him out of the reverie he had gotten lost in. 

"Oh, uh, touch is my conduit," Dude answered. "I don't know my specialization yet, though."

"I do," Ariadna piped up, regaining the room's attention immediately.

"You do? _How?_ " her brother demanded to know.

"I've had a lot of time to think things through," she explained. "And I live with you. Duh."

"But what is it?" he pressed insistently.

"Energy." 

Though it hadn't been very loud in the room to begin with, a deathly quiet settled on the air, which thickened and became difficult to breathe. Dude blinked multiple times and turned his gaze to the tabletop. Finally, after so much conversation, he grasped the mug by its body and swallowed down a big gulp of the lukewarm champurrado. His specialization was energy? But that was so vague and generalized, so how could she be sure? And how did Ariadna ever learn so much about witchkind in the first place?

"It makes sense," he muttered when the last traces of the thick drink had disappeared down his throat. "The lamp, the hidey-hole, summoning my familiar... It all adds up."

"Are you alright, mijo?" Maria inquired, worry lacing her tone in copious amounts. She reached for _his_ hand this time, and he numbly accepted the contact. "We didn't want to hide things from you for this long, but there was never a good time to explain it."

"I'm sure you could have found _some_ time," Dude grumbled, slipping his hand free. "Ari _clearly_ knows what's up about most of this already. It shouldn't have been an issue to tell me, Mamá. I need to know these things!"

"I know, hijito. I know," she answered mournfully, putting her hands back down on top of the table. "Ari only knows because of her magic, though. I couldn't hide my past, even if I had wanted to." 

"I hate all these secrets!" he yelled, rising from his seat and stomping down the hall to his and Ari's room. The door slammed shut behind him, leaving Ariadna and their mother alone to look at one another sadly. 

"Should I talk to him?" Ari signed with one eyebrow lifted. 

Maria shook her head and sighed, also rising to pick up the barely-touched champurrado. The mug was emptied into the sink and rinsed out methodically, giving her the chance to think things over some more. Then again, maybe the time for silence was altogether over. After giving Dude some time to cool his head and see how she had seen this entire predicament, then they would talk and talk and talk, uncovering all secrets in the process.

When Ariadna turned in for the night, she found her brother on his bed, hiding under the covers with his back turned to the rest of the room-- or maybe just turned away from her. She reached a hand out toward him and took a quiet step in his direction, but drew back and thought better of it. Bothering him now was probably not the best idea if he was still at all as steamed as he had been at the table. If he was sleeping, then waking him wasn't a good idea, either. 

The next morning arrived without any disturbances during the night. Ariadna rose with sunlight hitting her in the face, as peculiar as that was, and blinked awake slowly. Her vibrating alarm hadn't gone off? She checked her phone and frowned at the time display: her alarm wasn't supposed to go off for another fifteen minutes. 

'Wait. The sunlight woke me up?' she wondered, and her gaze fell on the window. Its sun-bleached curtains were usually drawn during the night, but this morning they were pulled aside and let a shaft of early morning sunlight stream into her side of the bedroom. The dividing curtain separating her side from her brother's was mostly stretched across the room's length, though closest to the window it was bunched up and offered her a clear view of Dude's empty pillow.

'Dude never wakes up early if he can help it' she thought, brows lowering in suspicion. A jolt of panicked realization zapped her like a bolt of lightning from the sky, and she threw the covers off of her body to plant her bare feet on the cold floor. Ariadna grabbed the curtain with her right hand and jerked it aside, revealing an empty bed with barely-made sheets and a scrap of paper, folded in half, resting on top. She snatched up the note and almost tore it with how unnecessarily forceful she was in opening it. 

**Couldn't sleep, went for a walk to clear my head. I might visit a friend, don't worry if I'm not back in the morning. Love, Dude**

"Oh, no," Ariadna mouthed silently. In her haste to reach her mother's room, her foot became entangled in the fabric of the curtain and she almost took a hard fall on the wood floor. Only quick instinct kept her upright, and she wrenched the door open with, again, more force than necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOMP, there it is!! 
> 
> And now we have some world-building, not mention the backstory for why a single mom would brave a foreign country with her two newborn babies. What do you guys think? I'm really looking forward to writing the next chapter, so maybe I'll have that out a little sooner than I wrote this one. Then again, who knows? School's rough even without work on top of it.
> 
> So! If you would, I'd always appreciate some comments to let me know your thoughts and interest in continuing with this story. Kudos don't hurt, either ;) Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next chapter!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in some recommended listening to add to the experience of reading this story, definitely check out "Which Witch" by Florence + The Machine :D It's sooo good, and it definitely has done more than its fair share of inspiring the plot of this story. (I also may be making a playlist for this story at some point but shhh we'll see ;))

As he strolled along through the brisk night air, his head down and his thoughts churning like an ocean during a typhoon, the trees lining both wide sidewalks of the street glowed a calming, luminescent aqua blue. It was rather quiet for a night on this side of the city, Dude remarked somewhere in the back of his mind. Even so, the air itself felt charged with a strange energy of sorts, igniting his nerve endings with electricity he couldn't find a specific source for. Maybe it was his magic reacting to finally knowing its identity after so many days (three, really) since finding out his magical heritage. 

For being roughly the middle of May, it wasn't cold enough to bother Dude-- or maybe his magic was keeping him so jazzed that he couldn't feel the cold anyway. Even if he had bothered to notice it, his mind was too preoccupied with everything he had just heard, and it dominated his thoughts so completely that he barely paid attention to where he was going. His father, the leader of a coven in Mexico, cultivating a harem so he would father a lot of children all at once; Dude still wanted to wretch. And Ariadna had known since they were kids! What the hell gave them the idea that they couldn't clue him in on the secrets of his past? 

"They probably just wanted it all to go away," he grumbled in Spanish under his breath, and for added measure he kicked a loose pebble on the sidewalk. It skidded almost a dozen feet ahead and let multicolored sparks fly upon every impact with the ground. He barely noticed and continued with walking as if there hadn't just been a rainbow of fire marking his route. "They were hoping I'd never get powers. Oh, sure, let's not tell Dude-- _Ricardo_ \-- anything about himself. Let him figure it out on his own. That's a _great_ idea!"

With his eyes still downcast, he didn't notice the trees behind him when their bio-engineered blue light dimmed like a light switch had been flipped. They then flickered with dark green light instead. The effect only lasted until Dude had walked several yards away, but it followed him down the streets until he at last turned off the beaten path. Was this the way to Kordelle's coven's house, or was he just walking around with no real destination in mind? Damp spring grass threatened to make him lose his footing as he trudged up a low hill and found a playground laid out before him. Oh, so he had wandered all the way to the park? Strange... It was usually a fifteen-minute walk at best, but it definitely had not been that long. 

Or maybe it had, and he just couldn't keep track of time anymore.

Dude let out a dejected sigh and skidded down the far side of the hill. From there, he wiped off the barely-gathered dew on the seat of the nearest swing and plunked himself down in it. When they were younger, his and Ari's mother had taken the two of them here whenever she found a chance to. Those... hadn't been often, but it made the memories a litttle sweeter to think back on when he considered how rarely Maria had any leisure time to spend with her kids. The sole of his shoe resting on the wood chips under him, he pushed himself back and forth ever so slightly, making the chains creak ominously in the still darkness. 

Thankfully, Dude had had the foresight to make sure his phone, mostly charged, was in his jacket pocket when he snuck out the window and braved the fire escape down to the ground. He pulled it out and turned it on. Ack! Too bright! The brightness dimmed as it sensed how dark it was, though, and he cleared the spots swimming over his vision by blinking rapidly a few times. 

He opened the text app and stared for a few moments at his most recent conversations. Kordelle was at the top, followed by his mom asking two days ago when we would be home after school. Then a group chat with Camry and Saoirse was next in line, but that had been dormant for the last few days. A pang of guilt shot through him; why did he agree to limit his contact with them? If he could just text them, maybe even tell them just a _little_ bit about what was going on, Dude knew they could say something that would make him feel better. 

A dejected sigh left his lips as he tapped on the conversation and stared at the last messages that had been sent. Saoirse had been telling him about Camry going to fight a ghost in the middle of their etiquette class a handful of days ago. It had technically been only a short while since then, but it felt like weeks since they had been back in that rhythm of what was their new "normalcy." How had so much changed in so short a time?

Before he could stop himself, his thumb hovering over the text window touched the screen and opened up the keyboard. He typed out "hey" slowly, paying far more attention than necessary to each of the three letters, but paused in sending the message. Kordelle's warning swirled around and around in Dude's head, filling him with a sense that talking to his best friends was a _very_ bad idea. But why? They were his best friends, so there was no reason to think they wouldn't support him. If anything, they would be the most understanding ot of just about everyone he had ever known!

The pad of his right thumb was literally a millimeter away from sending the text when his screen went dark, stealing away his one source of light. "What?" he whispered, glaring at his phone and repeatedly pressing the power button. Why wasn't it turning back on? " _Urrrgh_...!"

Rapid footsteps squelched on the dewy grass, drawing closer and growing louder by the second. Dude's heart leaped into his throat for all of two seconds before a familiar little jingle cut over the sound. He swiveled in the swing's seat and found Kordelle hurrying up to him. The Australian boy wore a ratty T-shirt and jeans that probably needed a belt; his feet didn't have socks on them, either. Had he really rushed out of the house so quickly that he forgot his socks and a jacket? 

"Hey," Kordelle gasped, struggling just a bit for breath. "Dude, are-- are you alright, mate?" 

"How did you know where I was?" Dude replied, lifting an eyebrow in genuine confusion. 

Kordelle rested his hand on his knee for a moment, bending over to catch his breath back. "The mirror... in the workshop," he explained. "I saw the trees changing color and the power lines shorting out-- they made a trail right to here."

"Huh?" Dude said. Since when had those things happened? His dead phone was stashed into his pocket not unlike how a naughty child would try to hide the evidence of grand theft cookie behind their back. 

Wood chips shuffled and slid underfoot as Kordelle took a seat in the swing next to Dude's; the much taller boy looked a bit comical, all squished into a spot made for much smaller kids. "Dude, what's the matter? It must be serious if your magic is reacting this way." 

Dude stared down at his feet and let the silence stretch on between them for a few extra seconds. Then, "Can't you just, y'know, read my mind or something? I'm surprised you don't already know."

"I said I wasn't going to make a habit out of that," Kordelle reminded him. "And it might make you feel better to actually talk about it yourself."

"Talk about it," he scoffed under his breath. " _Now_ everyone wants to talk about it..."

Now it was Kordelle's turn to raise an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" 

Dude let out another dejected sigh and shut his eyes, leaning the side of his head against a taut chain of his swing. Without moving from that position, he spoke softly. "My real name's Ricardo Joaquín Hinojosa. Did you know that? I did, but I didn't know my father's name is Ricardo, too. Turns out he's-- shit, what did she call them...? Estrellas del Dia?"

In a flurry of chain clinking and woodchip shifting, Kordelle was back on his feet and standing in front of Dude. His hands were on the distraught boy's shoulders and making him look into the boulder opal eyes staring right at him. "Did you just say ' _Estrellas del Dia?_ '" 

"Mmhmm," Dude hummed. "Surprise~" he sang weakly, accompanied by half-hearted jazz hands. "Sounds like something I should've known a long time ago, right?"

"Oh, wow," Kordelle whispered, leaning back and letting go of Dude. " _Ohhh_ , wow. Okay, okay-- Uh. Uhm. Err--"

"You've stopped computing," Dude commented in a deadpan tone. 

"I-- Yeah! Dude, you're from Estrellas del Dia! We know what coven your heritage comes from!" Kordelle exclaimed, though he restrained himself to being much quieter than your average exclamation. 

"I do _not_ come from that coven!" he insisted suddenly, stabbing a finger at the ground to make his stance on the matter clear. " _Not_ after what he did to my mother." 

Kordelle and Dude drifted into a silence where they just looked at each other for a number of long seconds. Then the taller of the two boys let out a heavy breath. "Can I just read your mind and see for myself? It doesn't sound like you want to talk about it very much."

Dude leaned his forehead against the chain and shut his eyes. "Go for it, man. I'm so done with all these _stupid secrets_." 

'Oh~?' Kordelle couldn't help but think when he heard that. His piqued curiosity on the topic of the Camry/Relle Phantom issue was revitalized with the prospect of learning what Dude knew about her. The tiny voice of his conscience berated him for this, though, and reminded him that he should be more worried for Dude and his situation at the moment. He listened to it this time and resigned himself to limiting his scope of mental vision to only what had happened that very night.

Inside his mind, Dude's thoughts were discordant and disorienting, which only served to make Kordelle worry for him even more. He saw the worry lines on Maria's face, the mug of champurrado steaming on the tiny, scuffed dining room table, and the horrified look on Ariadna's face when she also learned exactly what Ricardo had done. The story unfolded for Kordelle in a matter of seconds, cluing him in on more parts of the bigger picture. 

'I... Oh. _Wow_ ' he thought, not really sure what to make of such a story.

"I know, right?" Dude muttered. Oops, Kordelle's thoughts must have been leaking back to the inexperienced witch. That's a possibility when a mental connection is made. "I don't even know who to be angrier at: my mom for lying to me, or my dad for hurting her." 

The idea of sitting back in that cramped swing didn't appeal to Kordelle, so he resorted to crouching down on the woodchips in front of Dude. He had begun to push himself back and forth ever so slightly with the tip of his shoe, making the rusted connections for his swing at the top of the structure creak and groan softly. "Well... I can tell you that she had a good reason for it."

"I get that, though!" Dude replied just a bit too loudly. "I get that, I get that! Everyone has a good reason for lying-- even me! But I-- fuck, I don't know what to think anymore! And to think--!" Kordelle motioned for him to lower his voice, and Dude sucked in a deep breath before continuing. "And to think that if I hadn't ever met you, I probably _never_ would've found out." 

"I know," Kordelle said. For good measure, he put his hand on top of the one of Dude's that rested on his thigh. "But that's not what I meant. I've heard about what the Estrellas del Dia have done, and... yeah. You have no _idea_ how happy I am that you got out of there in time." 

He gave Dude a sincere smile and rose to his feet. "So, here's what I'm wondering: what are you gonna do now, mate?"

Dude stared long and hard at the ground after that. "I... guess..." 

What _would_ he do? He would have to reconcile with his family for getting so upset at one point or another, and experience told him that it was better when done sooner rather than later. Thinking of his family made him think of how Ariadna had already learned so much magic already-- how had she learned? Their mother probably didn't teach her, so it must have been someone else. 

A small spark of competitive spirit flared up in Dude's chest. "I've got it," he announced, also rising to his feet and looking up at Kordelle's expectant face.

"Yeah?" Kordelle prompted. 

"You're gonna teach me everything about witches and magic, and I mean _everything_. No more secrets-- I'm done with those. Don't hold back anything from me. I want to learn it all," he stated with conviction and a determined look on his face. "I know I can do it."

Kordelle beamed at that and nodded. "Sounds great to me. When do you want to start? After school tomorrow?"

Dude shook his head adamantly, making his longer green hair fly around with the motion. "Right now. I'm too jazzed up to go to sleep anyway. I don't think I can wait around anymore."

~~

When the two girls arrived separately at the front of the high school, Camry and Saoirse met up to wait together for the missing third of their trio. Though it was late spring, the early morning air was filled with a fog that had yet to burn off, so they stood close enough to share some of Camry's inhuman body heat. Minutes turned into almost half an hour, and by then they had to nearly sprint to make it to class on time. The first sprouts of worry grew in the pits of their stomachs as they each settled into their first classes, as evidenced by Saoirse's incessant pencil tapping and Camry's sudden need to spin her stimming ring. 

Why didn't Dude show up? He couldn't have been early and waiting somewhere else for them-- his commute to the school via public transportwas so fixed that they could usually predict when he'd arrive down to the minute. Had he walked? Or run? Also unlikely.

No, something was definitely up. With the threat of ghost attacks constantly looming over their heads, Camry in particular hoped that he was just stricken with an unforeseen case of a stomach bug or a cold. That was preferable to most of the other things that could happen.

By the time lunch rolled around, their spirits had deflated and all thoughts of talking to Dude that day were dashed to pieces. He was _still_ nowhere to be found, and with it being Friday before spring break, they would have to either wait until school started up again in over a week or try and get a hold of him sometime during the break. With how silent he had been to them as of late, though, that also didn't seem like a very reliable plan. 

"Maybe we should skip etiquette class and go to his house?" Camry suggested hopefully to her girlfriend as they sat across from one another to make talking easier. 

Saoirse shook her head at that idea and gave her a knowing, amused look. "You just want an excuse to get out of class. You're already in enough trouble with your parents and Mrs. Bosch as it is."

"But this is important, Seersh!" Camry insisted. "And it's not _just_ because I hate that class. I'm getting really worried about him."

Saoirse reached across the table to gently pat the back Camry's hand resting by her open lunchbox. "I know, Cam. I am, too, but we'll talk to him as soon as we see him again. He may just be sick with something-- maybe allergies. It _is_ spring, you know."

Camry begrudingly conceded to that possibility and tore off another bite of sandwich to stuff into her mouth. At least it had the effect of silencing her unnerved mumbling. It seemed like there weren't any normal excuses for them anymore-- not since they had begun protecting Bailey Lake from all the ghosts lurking in the shadows. 

Their last classes of the day passed by at an agonizingly slow pace. Every other student was itching to leave and start their spring break as soon as possible; Saoirse and Camry just wanted to meet up with Dude in the library once school was let out. Finally, when the seconds of each minute decided to stop taking twice as long to pass, the bell rang and teachers were shouting their final remarks over the din of eager students talking and shoving everything into their backpacks. Camry waved goodbye to her French teacher, and Saoirse left Home Ec without a word. The two girls found each other by the double doors of the library and smiled at each other before going in. 

During lunch they had decided to text Dude and let them know they wanted to meet up in the library. It had definitely delivered, so they could only hope he would see it soon and hurry in or answer from home and tell them why he couldn't come. They got comfortable at a table and settled in to wait. 

Fifteen minutes stretched to half an hour, and by then Camry's leg was bouncing hard and fast enough to make the table shake. "He's not coming," she assumed gloomily. "What the hell? Where _is_ he?" 

"It is getting pretty late," Saoirse agreed, though it pained her to say so. "We need to go-- we're late for etiquette as it is."

Camry groaned maybe a bit too loudly for the library; _of course_ she still had to go suffer under Mrs. Bosch's tutelage. Now that they were late, they were sure to get a lecture on punctuality, or something to that effect. The thought made her stomach churn with nausea. 

The double doors had just clicked shut behind them when a teacher, roughly in her thirties, with mousy brown hair and a pair of glasses on the bridge of her nose spotted them and speed-walked over. "Girls, hold on a second!" They froze and turned around, guiltily drawing their hands back to their sides as they had just been about to link them. The teacher caught up to them and offered a wide, sincere smile.

"You two are Dude's friends, right? I see you all studying together sometimes in the library," she began. "I'm glad you're both still here-- I wanted to let you know how all of your studying has really paid off." 

"It has?" Saoirse said, her eyebrows shooting up higher on her forehead. Camry beamed at the teacher, her cheeks tinted with a bashful blush at the praise. 

"It _definitely_ has," she confirmed. "I just finished grading the test he took in my class today and his score is almost 100%. Keep up the good work, ladies!" 

With a wave the teacher went back the way she came and disappeared around the corner, her heels clacking loudly on the white tile flooring. It wasn't until she was well out of sight that Camry and Saoirse dropped their relaxed facades and exchanged worried glances. What in the world had she been talking about? Dude took a test in her class but hadn't shown up to school? No, that didn't add up.

"Is he... _avoiding_ us?" Camry murmured, fear lighting up in her iolite eyes. 

"I... I don't know," Saoirse answered in a similar octave. "But... C'mon, let's go. We're getting to the bottom of this."

They rushed out of the school side by side, paying little attention to the ghost town-like hallways where their rapid footsteps echoed off the walls. The students really couldn't have cleared out faster, apparently. Once outside, the outer gates were in view-- a boy with a shock of dark green hair was also in view. He strolled along through the gates, as unbothered as anyone getting out of school on a Friday would be. Saoirse spotted him first and pointed him out to her girlfriend, who cupped her hands around her mouth and called out, "Hey, Dude!" 

He didn't answer; was he listening to music through his headphones, or were they too far away? Neither girl wanted to entertain the idea that their best friend was giving them the cold shoulder. When he didn't respond, they broke out into a run to catch up before he could go too far. 

"Dude!" Camry called out again. Thanks to her athleticism stemming from both her dancing and ghost-fighting hobbies, she easily pulled ahead of Saoirse and fell into step beside Dude in a matter of seconds. "Dude, what's wrong? Why have you been ignoring us?" 

Saoirse drew even with the two of them and flanked his other side. "Is everything alright, Dude?" 

He didn't answer, keeping his eyes forward and acting as if he couldn't hear either of his friends. Anxiety and confusion poured like ice water into their veins in near-unison; what in the world was going on? While it was Camry's tendency to shrink into herself when faced with such an anxiety, Saoirse shot a hand out and grabbed Dude's shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. He barely reacted save for how he stopped walking and gave her a miniscule glance. 

"Dude, you can tell us if something is wrong," she began in a serious tone. "Really, we're here for you. But don't just _ignore_ us-- tell us what's wrong." 

"It would be better if you left me alone," Dude intoned, but they immediately picked up on how his vocal inflections seriously lacked so much of their usual energy. He started walking again, paying neither girl any more attention and leaving them behind. 

In a burst of desperation, Camry shot forward and latched onto his hand. "Dude, please don't shut--!"

The words froze in her throat when, upon contact with him, Dude evaporated into wisps of light grey vapor that rapidly dissipated into the surrounding air. Saoirse couldn't hold back from letting out a quiet shriek that she muffled with a hand over her mouth. Camry's eyes were round and wet as the gears turned at breakneck speed in her head. 

Dude

Witches 

Witch magic 

Witch magic as specifically anti-ghost

Camry, Camirelle, Relle

Relle ghost

Dude

"They have him," she whispered. The building anxiety in the pit of her stomach forced out a sensation of bile rising in her throat which she tamped down through sheer will alone. 

"The... witches?" Saoirse murmured, too stunned to speak any louder. 

They didn't need to say anything to confirm their suspicions. 

It looked like etiquette class was going to have to wait for a while. 

~~

"I was surprised to see your friend asleep on the couch this morning," was the first thing Fan Liu said to Endellion when he trudged into the study around eleven that morning. He looked exhausted, with dim circles under his eyes and his hair down-- a rare occurrence. It stuck up in odd places like straw, vaguely resembling a nest that his avian familiar would only worsen if it was brought out. 

"Oh, so he _did_ go to sleep eventually," Endellion remarked after covering a long yawn with one hand. "It's a miracle."

Fan Liu encouraged him to elaborate by expression alone, and he was happy to oblige after taking a seat on one of the three-legged stools in the room. "I don't doubt he's a witch of energy _at all_. He kept poring over books and asking questions and practicing spells in my room until at least three a.m.-- probably later, but I think I dozed off around then." 

"An energy specialization, huh?" Fan Liu noted. "Well, it's good to have him here instead of out there while he's learning. It reminds me of you a little, back when you first arrived." This she spoke of in a fond tone that made Endellion smile faintly, though the memories of why he had left Australia were everything but fond. 

"Oh, by the way," she piped up while her hands were kept busy sorting bones on her workbench. "How are you covering up the fact that your friend is here instead of at school?"

"I sent a body double spell to school to take his tests for him," he explained, his eyes closed and his chin resting in the palm of his hand as he leaned his weight on the edge of the workbench. 

Fan Liu hummed deep in her throat; to those who knew her well, that was her way of saying something along the lines of "Good thinking." With only the sounds of bones shuffling and clinking together to break the silence, Endellion found himself drifting off a little more against his better judgment. He started awake when his teacher spoke suddenly. 

"So, are you ready to learn the next step in the spell?" 

'What spell?' he wondered for five seconds longer than he should have. "Uh-- oh! Oh, yeah, right. Sure, okay, I'm ready."

Fan Liu put her sorting on hold to clear a small space in front of her; she rested her forearms there and looked across her shoulder at her pupil. "Now that you have your target's true name, it's time that you gathered what you'll need to actually perform the spell. It comes from the witches of Creole many centuries ago who raised ghosts into this dimension to do their bidding. You will need a white rope with twenty-one knots tied in it and twenty-one blood blossom seeds."

Blood blossoms were an interesting topic of conversation in the witch world, to say the least. In essence, it was a powerful organic defense against ghosts. Unbeknownst to humanity, though, a blood blossom was simpy a flower that had been enchanted by a witch at some point in its lineage. It could be any type of flower-- in some cases, even a vegetable plant could be imbued with anti-ghost properties. Fan Liu's coven in particular was very lucky to have Allie in that regard because, as a potion-savvy witch that could grow all types of plants rather quickly, she had an abundance of blood blossoms in many varieties growing right in their safehouse. 

Endellion nodded, making a mental note of each item. "Alright, but I am a little worried about something. Either this ghost is a parasite that's latched onto a human victim, or it's a ghost that can take human form, and I can't tell which one it is at this point. If it _is_ a parasite, then its host is actually one of Dude's best friends and I don't want to endanger her."

"You have nothing to worry about," Fan Liu assured him with a short shake of her head. "This spell weakens a ghost's powers considerably before binding it to your will. If there is a human life attached to it, she will be safely separated from it once the spell takes effect. You just have to make sure it doesn't lash out against its host until you can perform the spell."

Endellion nodded, confident in the assurance that this would work. As long as he did this well, the only effects would be eliminating Relle and saving Camry, which would also free up witchkind to go back to hunting down ghosts themselves. 

It was foolproof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! It hasn't been an inordinate amount of time since I last posted! Hurray! 
> 
> Anyway, what do you think? Kordelle actually does care about Dude's friends (plot twist!); how's all of that for dramatic irony?
> 
> As always, I deeply appreciate your comments and kudos, so please keep 'em coming! They're great motivation for more updates :3 See you in the next chapter!


	12. Chapter 12

"What do we do? Oh my god, Seersh, what do we _do?_ " Camry exclaimed, her fists pressing hard enough to leave bruises on her bony sternum. "The witches-- _why would they take him_ \--? We need to _rescue_ him! We have to find where they're hiding a-and get him _back!_ "

"I know, I know!" Saoirse answered, a grimace evident in her expression. "Ugh-- hold on, I feel sick." The sight of their best friend exploding into vapors had undoubtedly taken a toll on her, well, constitution. 

"Are you okay?" Camry asked quickly as she put a concerned hand on her girlfriend's shoulder. 

Saoirse waved a hand flippantly, though she was looking a little worse for wear. "Y-Yeah, don't-- don't worry about me. We need to hurry and find Dude." 

~~

When he woke up after only four or five hours of sleep, Dude was already geared up and raring to get back to work. The speed at which he was learning spells and incantations was borderline greedy, though his enthusiasm certainly imbued the entire house with a similar energy of "Go go go!" Kordelle, as tired as he was, was over the moon with his friend being so eager to get his hands on their shared heritage. 

Allie's lessons on botany and herbology in potions was the first thing he jumped into after rising from the couch a little before noon. Because he had absorbed information from a few potion texts the night before, he wanted to put his new knowledge into action. Kordelle took the opportunity to lock himself in his room for a while to nap and avoid the stenches wafting up from the kitchen. As much as he wanted to personally guide Dude's learning, he also didn't want to be stuck with a migraine for the rest of the day, so it was a necessary sacrifice. 

Allie's lesson ran for a number of hours as potion-making can be a rather tedious and lengthy process, which left Kordelle with plenty of time to buckle down with his own collection of magical tomes. However, as he was perusing a few of the old annotations he had made to a book on brain anatomy and holding a bandana over his mouth and nose, Kordelle heard a faint buzzing coming from somewhere in his room. His heart skipped a beat before his better judgment could assure him that it just sounded like a cell phone. 

However, when he looked to his left he saw that his phone was charging where it always did on the night stand, dormant as per the usual. Whose phone was doing that, then? 

'Oh' he realized, and with barely a hesitant thought he lurched forward off of his bed and started peering around the stacks of books that Dude had left like mines in a minefield all around his room the night before. Kordelle finally found it nestled in between two pages of a book on spatial matter spells-- a rather advanced discipline of magic, he noted with praise-- and saw that Dude had just missed a call from a contact labeled as "Camcorder" with the jack-o'-lantern and dancing lady emojis next to it. 

'Is this Camry?' Kordelle wondered with a pensive frown. Then he saw the time displayed on the phone's lock screen-- it was well after school was supposed to be over, so it would make at least a little bit of sense for her to be calling at this time of day. 

But what reason would she have to call? Had they made plans that Dude never showed up for? 'No, I told him to cut off contact with them' he reasoned. 'Though I wouldn't put it past him to forget about any sort of plans he may have made, especially after everything that happened last night.' 

'But the body double should have taken care of their suspicions. It's foolproof! Unless...' Kordelle stood up straighter and began to pace back and forth across the room, subconsciously maneuvering around the stalagtites of books peppering his floor space. 'They could just be suspicious because he hasn't been talking to them. Maybe they just wanted to hang out today after school. It could just be a perfectly innocent thing. 

'Or maybe the spell faltered somehow. How could it, though? Corporeal illusions are one of my specialties! The only thing that would make sense is if something interfered with it, got in the way of my magic. But what at the _school_ could--?' 

Oh. Oh, _there_ it was. _Of course_ \-- how did he not see it right away? A spell that is remotely powered like a body double would be susceptible to ghostly energy, especially if it came into direct contact with the source itself. The spell would fail and dissipate almost immediately without its caster there to personally sustain it. 

"Great," Kordelle grumbled under his breath. "They're onto me..."

He _had_ to throw Camry off of his trail. If she started to suspect the truth behind Dude's 'disappearance,' it would cause problems for Dude's learning as well as Kordelle's plans for her. She wouldn't know about Dude being a witch, though, right? No, that didn't seem likely. What could have clued her in on that? Kordelle quickly thought back on all of their past encounters and scanned his memories for any sort of indication he might have accidentally given that could have given away his identity. 

No, he felt safe in that regard. He couldn't have said or done anything obvious enough to give himself or Dude away. 

'Hold on. I'm getting ahead of myself' Kordelle chastised himself. 'This could just be an invitation to hang out. It doesn't have to mean anything serious.' 

He was just beginning to wind down his train of thought and relax back into reading when the phone buzzed again in his hands, this time showing a different contact: "Selkie" with the piano and blue butterfly emojis. Before he really had time to think it over, his left hand's second and third fingers touched his adam's apple and he whispered a spell before accepting the call. 

"Hello?" he answered in a perfect mimicry of Dude's voice. 

"Dude!" Saoirse's exhausted but relieved voice exclaimed a little too loudly into the receiver. "Dude, are you alright? Where _are_ you right now?" 

"I had to get home kinda early," Kordelle lied, easily coming up with the fib. "Mamá hasn't really been feeling very well lately."

"Oh, no," Saoirse sympathized in a soft tone. "I-- Hang on, Cam, he's fine. No _nonono_ \--!"

"Dude, what the heck just _happened?_ " Camry suddenly cut in with a shout. "You-- I don't even know-- you just vanished! _Poof!_ Out of existence!"

"Cam, give me my arm back," Kordelle just barely heard Saoirse groan from a little ways off. Then she was back at regular volume, as if she had put the phone back up to her ear. "Dude, can you meet us at Delta Pin? We really need to talk to you about something _kinda_ important."

"And we wanna make sure you're okay!" Camry added. Maybe they were sharing the phone between themselves now. "We're skipping etiquette lessons today, so just meet us where we usually sit A.S.A.P., okay?"

Kordelle couldn't help swallowing down a huge glop of spit; it did little to wet his parched throat. This mimicry spell took quite a toll on the user's vocal chords. "A-Are you sure? I kinda-- _keff_ \-- ugh, kinda feel like maybe I'm catching what Mamá is getting."

"It'll be fine," Saoirse assured him. "We won't try to touch you or breathe your germs."

'At least there's that promise' he had to admit. 'A body double should be safer to use in circumstances like that.'

" _Please_ say you'll come, Dude," Camry all but begged woefully. "It's _really_ important! And," she added as an aside, "it really sucks that we haven't been able to hang out more."

So it was confirmed that they had seen the body double dissipate. That meant that they at least knew magic was involved with Dude. If he didn't alleviate their fears, Kordelle knew they would start to suspect Dude's true heritage, which could then possibly be traced back to Kordelle himself and the rest of the coven. If a ghost-- not to mention a possibly parasitic ghost with the power to fully disguise itself inside of a human host-- found out where the coven was and who its members were, it would spell _devastation_ for their secret world. 

Not to mention that he was bound to get some excellent insider knowledge if he went himself.

"... Okay, I'll be there. Gimme half an hour, 'kay?"

"Perfect," Saoirse confirmed, obviously pleased with his compliance. "See you there."

"Bye!" Camry called a second before the call ended.

Out on the sidewalk in front of the high school, Saoirse and Camry immediately exhaled _huge_ twin sighs of complete relief. Dude was alright! He was even talking to them, sort of! "Oh, man, I was so scared for a while there," Camry admitted.

"I know. You were talking so fast that I could _barely_ understand you," Saoirse said, a somewhat mirthful smile sitting serenely on her lips. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that Camry and Dude were close-- almost strangely close, considering Camry's lack of attraction to men and Dude's lack of attraction to her. Then again, it wasn't as if their relationship had to be romantic for them to care so much for each other. 

Camry smiled a bit awkwardly at that. " _Yeah_... I mean, I'm still so freaked out by everything that's going on, y'know? If Dude got tangled up in all of it, too, I wouldn't know _what_ to think anymore."

"Isn't he kinda already tangled up in it, though?" Saoirse pointed out as they started the walk to the nearest L-tram station. If they wanted to make it to the Delta Pin Shopping Center in time to meet Dude there, they would need to stop dawdling and get a move on. "As our friend, I mean-- a member of the team and all that."

"True, but, like, I mean if the witches have him hostage or something," Camry clarified in a low voice. "That would be _seriously_ bad." 

"No kidding," Saoirse agreed, her tone somber. With that horrifying thought weighing down like tons of cement on their brains, neither girl spoke much throughout the whole trip to Delta Pin.

In his room, Kordelle shut the pilfered phone off and returned it to roughly where he thought he had found it. 'Okay, okay,' he thought rapidly, his index and middle fingers finding his temples to rub them meditatively. 'This is fine. This is great. I've been meaning to practice more illusions anyway. I've even given myself an excuse for the vocal fry. 

'I just have to go there, talk to the two of them while pretending to be Dude, and figure out what I can about Camry and her ghost. This'll reassure them that everything's fine and buy me plenty of time to finish learning the ghost mind control spell. Then, I'll get the whole story and decide what to do with 'Relle Phantom' once and for all.'

Yeah, this was a good plan that would _definitely_ work. 

~

Sitting on the far edge of the food court in Delta Pin, Saoirse and Camry itched and fidgeted in their seats. Where was Dude? He was taking a little longer than they expected to arrive. 

Knowing that the imminent talk they were about to have with him was most likely only minutes away, both girls had chosen to abstain from eating anything. Still, a cup of bubble tea sat in front of each of them; they were mostly full as neither really felt the urge to do much more than weakly nurse the drinks. As she chewed a lump slowly, paying attention to each time she bit down, Camry vowed to maintain as calm a facade as possible. 

That vow was chucked out the window the second she saw Dude's floppy green hair come into view around a corner. As he approached their table, she got out of her chair and made to hug him. "Dude, there you are!"

Dude shrank back before she could make contact. "I'm getting sick!" he reminded her quickly, and Camry wrenched her hands back and held them up in an "I surrender" type of pose. 

"Sorry!" she yelped, and then sheepishly added, "I forgot... Are you okay?"

"Yeah, except for my voice," he answered with a gesture to his throat. Now that he mentioned it, he was starting to sound a little on the gravelly side. 

Camry perked up with determination at the sound of that. "I'll go get you some bubble tea! Do you want matcha or mint?" 

"Uh, mint's great. Thanks," he replied, and she sped off to hop into line, her wallet already in hand. 

As soon as she was firmly in place in the queue, Camry slapped her forehead and groaned. "Great. Now I'm just stalling. I _knew_ I would do this..." 

Saoirse had remained behind, mostly in order to keep their table from being taken by any of the other teens and families in the mall after school on a Friday afternoon. She smiled with relief evident in her eyes when Dude took his seat across from her. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you're okay." 

"What're you guys talking about, though?" he asked, raising a confused eyebrow. "Why wouldn't I be okay? And what was Cam talking about with me going 'poof?'" He jabbed a thumb back over his shoulder in the general direction of the bubble tea line for added effect.

" _Well_..." she hemmed, as if deliberating whether or not she should start without Camry there as well. A quick glance at the line told her that her girlfriend was at the counter already, so it wasn't as if they were going to have to wait that long. "It's kinda weird, but what else is new?" 

"Right?" he agreed with a soft chuckle that devolved into a short fit of coughing. Saoirse reached a concerned hand out but quickly drew it back when she remembered that he didn't want to be touched. 

"She'll be back with that tea in a minute," Saoirse assured him. "Are you gonna be okay?" 

"Probably," he managed to say between hacks. 'Yikes, this vocal fry is more intense than I expected.' 

His coughing was over by the time Cam returned with a tall, green drink in hand and set it down in front of him. The red straw had already been punched through the plastic lid. "Hopefully this helps at least a _little_." 

"Thanks," he said, accepting it and eagerly taking a long draw of it through the straw. A few bulbs were sucked up as well, and he chewed them quickly while trying to suppress his gag reflex. The tea itself was fine, but he had always hated the texture of the tapioca pearls. "Man, I _needed_ this."

"Did you already tell him, or...?" Cam asked Saoirse at such a low volume that Dude almost didn't hear it over the din of the food court. 

"No, I was waiting for you to get back," Saoirse answered. 

"Oh, okay. So, hey, Dude," Camry started rather quickly, almost as if she was trying to rush through what she wanted to say. "We're really sorry we haven't been able to hang out much lately."

"It's okay," he said immediately. "I know you're both really busy with this cotillion stuff."

"Yeah, but we kinda... learned about some things in the last few days, and we feel bad for not telling you sooner," Saoirse added before taking a long sip of her own tea. "So we're gonna tell you now."

"Okay?" he prompted. Inside, Kordelle was practically over the moon with excitement; this conversation was beginning to sound like everything he wanted to hear! 

"So..." Camry leaned in and down, keeping her voice quiet and conspiratorial. "Apparently there are people out there who are _witches_." 

She paused to let that sink in; hopefully the look of dumb shock on his face would be taken for a blown mind rather than impending dread. "Yeah, I know, right? They can do magic-- really powerful stuff-- and have this thing against ghosts. Or, so I've heard."

"Yeah, and today we thought you weren't at school," Saoirse jumped in urgently. "But when we saw you leaving the campus we tried to talk to you and you just..."

"Poof," Camry whispered, using both hands to simulate a tiny explosion.

"You were just _gone_ ," Saoirse reiterated. "So, we're worried that maybe these witches are, I dunno, after you or something."

"It's so _weird_ , and it doesn't even add up all that well," Cam said. "You don't know anything about this, right?" 

Dude shook his head resolutely, maintaining a mildly stunned expression. "I-- no, no, this is the first I'm hearing about witches at all."

They each blew out a loud sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness," Saoirse even whispered into her straw. 

"Why? What's 'thank goodness?'" Dude pressed. 

"Well-- and you're gonna laugh at this," Saoirse said, "but the ghosts in the Zone actually told Cam that _you_ were a witch, too." 

"Isn't that weird?" Camry giggled. She sucked down a mouthful of tea and chewed the tapioca orbs rapidly. Throughout their conversation, he had been taking note of how she refrained from touching her cold drink itself and was minimizing contact with its body even now. Was she afraid of heating it up by accident with her volcanic ghost powers? "Like, why would they think that?"

" _Pffft_ ," Dude snorted, then clapped a hand over his mouth and nose as if he was about to spray his tea because of his laughing. "C'mon, that's _crazy!_ I've never-- _ahem_ \-- heard of anything like this before today. Honest."

"That's what we figured," Saoirse said.

"But here's the other thing," Cam interjected seriously. "It kinda seems like they have it out for me right now. I keep getting attacked every time I go out to... _y'know_. Last time, I had to go to the Zone to escape, and it felt like my brain was getting crushed from all sides..." She looked down through the top of her transparent lid and saw the ice melting inside of her cup. Her hands were clasped around it, unintentionally liquefying the frozen water, while her iolite eyes darkened with a haunting memory. "I barely even remember most of it."

"Are you okay, though?" Dude piped up, his eyebrows drawing together with unease. 

"Oh, yeah, I think I'm alright," she answered with a weak facsimile of a reassuring smile. "It was just really scary, and I'm worried about what the witch might've seen in my head... _If_ that's what they were doing, I mean. I don't really know anything about these witches." 

"What _do_ you know, exactly?" he asked curiously. 

Saoirse and Camry exchanged a quick glance. "Just that they can do magic, they're really powerful, their magic is specifically designed to get rid of ghosts, and that they have something called 'opalescence,' or something like that," Camry listed, ticking each item off on her fingertips. "Y'know, if they weren't so hell-bent on getting rid of ghosts, like Shasta and the others were saying, we'd probably make a really good team."

"I doubt that," Dude couldn't help himself as he murmured that. Both girls looked at him with confusion on their faces before he quickly explained himself. "I mean, 'cuz it sounds like they _really_ don't like ghosts, and they would probably just go after _you_... right?" 

"I mean, maybe," she conceded pensively, one hand cupping her chin. "But, like, they would probably make an exception for me if they knew the truth, y'know?"

"Right, the truth," he repeated, then closed his lips around the straw of his drink. 'Why don't you just come out and _tell_ me the truth, dammit?'

It seemed as though they wanted to say more, but a jingle from Saoirse's pocket derailed their trains of thought. Camry's phone started going off a half second later, and she answered the call with obvious trepidation. Saoirse was busy talking to someone who sounded like her mother, judging by the way Saoirse kept trying to explain and kept getting cut off. They exchanged promises to come home immediately and said their goodbyes before hanging up in near-perfect unison.

"Busted," Cam sighed mournfully.

"'Cuz of the cotillion thing?" Dude asked. "How much trouble are you in for skipping?"

"I was already in trouble, so this is just gonna be icing on the cake," Camry groaned. "Stupid Batron, stupid Shasta, stupid witches..."

He tried not to take offense to that. "When even if this cotillion? It sounds like you're being asked to put in a lot of work for it."

"No kidding," Camry grumbled. 

"It's the Friday a week from now, at the country club," Saoirse answered. "Did we not tell you before? Sorry."

"'Sfine," he said. Another round of sudden coughing had him thumping his chest with a fist, and when Camry rose to pat his back he waved her away. "No, no, I'm good. Don't get sick and miss your cotillion. All this work for nothing?"

"True," she admitted. "Well, we'd better go. Text you later, Dude."

"And feel better, okay?" Saoirse added as she, too, stood and shouldered her backpack. Wow, so they had really just rushed directly from school to the mall to meet him. Even by proxy, Kordelle couldn't help but feel a little bit touched.

"I will. ¡Adios!" he called hoarsely with a wave at their retreating figures. They waved back as well and clasped hands as they moved in single file around a large crowd of teenagers, which ultimately kept them out of sight until they were too far away to be seen.

As soon as he was sure they were gone, Kordelle used his second and third fingers to tap his neck and release the vocal mimicry spell. He gasped in his own voice and sucked down the rest of his tea, letting the cold drink soothe his roughened throat. 'Wow, that was so much harder than I thought it would be' he commented once he was down to tearing open the plastic lid and chewing on the ice. The shocking chill felt _amazing_ going down. 

Thinking back on their conversation, Kordelle frowned at how little he had learned. 'Well, that isn't _entirely_ true' he reprimanded himself. 'Now I know they're pretty much in the dark about witches, and they don't suspect Dude is a witch, either. Plus, they're not going to worry about him anymore and probably even leave him alone so he can 'get better.' The coven is safe.'

Mission accomplished.

As he got up to leave, tossing his empty cup out along the way, another thought occurred to him and made him snicker despite himself. 'Work with Relle? "Make a good team?" That's hilarious. As if.'

~

"Do you have the seeds?" 

Endellion produced all twenty-one rattling around in a paper packet that he dangled triumphantly from between his pointer finger and thumb. "Allie had some. They're asphodel flowers. That doesn't matter, does it?"

Fan Liu shook her head. "No, not at all. Just as long as they haven't sprouted yet.

"You're going to have to whisper a spell into each knot that you tie into the white rope. After you say each one, 'plant' a seed inside and finish the knot, sealing in the seed in the process. That way, when you have your ghost trapped with no way out, you can weaken its powers as well as its mind until you can take over."

"And then you'll teach me the spell for mind control?" he asked with a twinge more eagerness than he meant to express.

Fan Liu smiled and nodded. "Finish your rope first, and then we move on to the mind control. Do you have a plan for when you're capturing your ghost?"

Endellion grinned. "Next Friday, one week from now. It'll be distracted by other things, so it's perfect to find an opportunity to catch it."

"Good. Then let's get to work."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you on the edge of your seat yet? >:)c   
> Please leave a comment down below and a vote while you're here! It always means so much to me :D See you in the next chapter!
> 
> ALSO: If anyone knows how to add pictures/videos into a story then please let me know bc I think I've seen it done before on here and I really wanna show you guys all the amazing art I've commissioned for these characters :3 Thanks!


	13. Chapter 13

The front door of the coven house opened and closed softly, admitting a weary Kordelle with a thoughtful look on his face. He had only just hung up his jacket on the coat rack in the foyer when a teenaged boy's voice called out his name hopefully. "Yeah?" Kordelle answered, and all of a sudden Dude was there, talking and gesturing animatedly in what Kordelle subconsciously knew was Ancient Greek. 

"Why didn't you tell me we could learn new languages at the drop of a hat?" Dude exclaimed, his opalescent eyes positively shining. "This is so amazing! How the hell is this possible?"

Kordelle smirked mirthfully at that and followed Dude back into the kitchen, where Allie was busy bottling up pungent potions with a funnel and ladle. "It's something all witches can do, Dude. How many languages did you know before you met me?"

"Uh... Four," Dude answered after taking a second to consider whether both sign languages should count as their own. They did, of course. "English, Spanish, ASL, and SSL."

"And how many people can say they know four languages by the time they're sixteen?" Kordelle asked knowingly.

"Prooobably other witches?" Dude guessed.

He gave the green-haired boy a congratulatory finger gun. "True. But don't try to learn more than one every couple of months, okay? Your brain might explode." He left the kitchen on that note to get away from the smells of Allie's brewing potions. 

Dude, with a puzzled expression on his face, followed him from a few paces behind. "You mean that _figuratively_ , right? Kordelle? _Right?_ "

~

Day One: botany, herbology, and the basics of potion-making. 

Allie was a good teacher, especially for a girl that had just barely reached teenagerhood. Dude, as eager a pupil as there ever was, asked all of his questions without hesitation, and what Allie couldn't answer confidently was researched until a conclusion could be reached. In a way, they were teaching each other little by little as young witches often do. Her otter familiar was also a very big help by fetching smaller items and turning pages when their hands were full. Since Dude had only just learned how to summon his familiar and it was still very weak and inexperienced, he didn't really go the extra mile to bring it out and use it. 

However, there was one incident where he did call out his familiar. Allie's otter had been scampering around on the counter, weaving between and around vials of ingredients, when one of them was bumped into and sent toppling over the edge. Its glass container made a wobbly scraping sound as it was knocked over, and Dude instinctively reached for it even though he was clear on the other side of the kitchen. Allie yelped as a reflex, but the bottle didn't shatter on the ground. In fact, it didn't even touch the ground at all. 

Dude's familiar, extending from his right shoulder and hovering an inch and a half off of the floor, gripped the bottle with all five fingers to keep it from slipping free. Allie released a pent-up breath in a loud "Phew!" and beamed at her firmly concentrating student. "Dude, that was amazing!"

"It was?" he asked. His familiar began to retract, bringing the fallen vial closer and closer until he could reach out and grab it with a flesh and blood hand. As soon as he held it safely, he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding back.

"Yeah!" she cheered. "Don't you remember yesterday? You were concentrating so hard just to summon it, and today you just, y'know-- whoosh! Bam!" Allie struck a confident pose with both hands balled into fists on her hips and her chin jutting out triumphantly. "Here it is, world!"

Dude grinned at her antics and crossed the kitchen to set the vial back where it had been standing. "I mean, I _was_ practicing practically all night."

"Which just goes to show that I was right," Allie boasted, her chest puffed out to try and make herself look as big on the outside as she felt on the inside; although, for her diminutive, preteen stature, it would take a little more than posing. 

"Right about what?" he asked.

"That it takes practice to get better," she reminded him. "The more you practice, then the better you'll be at everything you want to be good at."

The sound of a roiling boil filled the air at that point and spurred Allie into rushing over to the stove to check on their brewing potion. Dude hung back to stay out of her way for a few seconds, but then decided to slink over to stand by her side. He wanted a peek at the almost-final result of their afternoon's hard work. Inside the pot, the liquid that had begun as a murky, swampy brown looked so much more pleasant since the hue had shifted with the rise in temperature, turning it pastel yellow with flecks of green and gold scattered throughout. Its viscosity was like cheese sauce, but the scent billowing up with the clouds of steam was incredibly herbal and pleasantly smoky. 

"Mmm~" Dude hummed as he drew in a whiff of the brew. "You were right about it turning into something _way_ more appetizing, Allie."

"I know," she chirped gleefully. "And with this much, we'll be able to fill at least a dozen portions."

As he watched the bubbles exploding on the thick surface of the concoction, a thought crossed his mind. "So, you said this stuff is an edible cleanser, right? What exactly does _that_ mean?"

"Sometimes a witch's magic can suffer from an external, uh, infection," Allie explained as she stirred. With the other hand, she reached past Dude and grabbed a pinch of dried herbs to sprinkle into the pot. "I mean, it's not _exactly_ an infection. It's called The Haze."

"Sounds intimidating," he noted.

"Well, it can be," she admitted. "It's also pretty common, though-- like the cold. It can cause your magic to stop responding the way you want it to. You get it from overloading your conduit."

"That's a thing that can happen?" Dude gasped. "How?"

Allie didn't answer right away and instead instructed him to grab the pot by its handles and take it off of the stove. They hurried it over to the sink, inside of which a dozen or so two-ounce bottles were lined up and uncapped to admit the brew. As he held the pot just so, Allie scooped semi-precise amounts into the vials and quickly shoved the corks into the necks to seal everything in. By the time the last of their creation was packaged up and sealed, Dude could feel his arms tiring and had to plop the pot into the other side of the sink.

"Nice work," Allie said, beaming up at him. "Thanks for helping me, Dude."

"Thanks for teaching me," he replied with an equal amount of energy lighting up his smile and opal eyes. "Now what?"

"Well..." A tint of pink highlighted her cheekbones as she bashfully refused to look at his face. "I, uh, have this silly little ritual that I like to do when I'm done making a potion..."

"What is it?" he immediately asked, figuratively lighting up like a Christmas garland that had just been plugged in. 

"It's just, uh... a little spell, or whatever," she admitted. "Promise you won't laugh?"

"Wouldn't dream of it," Dude swore with a hand over his heart. "Show me, show me, show me!"

"O-Okay," Allie said, a little taken aback by his eagerness. She turned toward the sink and put her hands out above it, palms down and fingers splayed out as wide as they could go. Allie's trepidation morphed into a soft serenity, and the words poured out of her mouth as easily as water tumbles over the edge of a waterfall. 

"May your contents never spoil  
Never dull, fade, or over-boil  
May your host find happiness in all that they do  
So sayeth the guarantee of an Allie brew." 

A faint shimmer of light drifted down like dust particles to settle on the vials, where the glitter clung and glowed until the little rhyme was over. After that, they disappeared like figments of the imagination. Dude's hands were clasped in front of his face as he tried to hide his huge grin; that had been too adorable for words! 

Allie peeked through one eye and glanced over her shoulder at him. "So, uh, yeah."

"Did you come up with that yourself?" he asked. "That was so _cute!_ Does it really help your potions?"

"Yes, uhm-- thank you?-- and yeah," she answered while gripping her upper arm with her other hand in a pose that instinctively reminded Dude of Camry when she got anxious. "It helps their shelf life last longer... even though I edited the spell when I was younger..."

"I love it," he gushed honestly. "Should we put the potions away now?"

Allie nodded. "In a minute. Let's let them cool down more first. And hey! You should take a couple of them home with you, Dude. I mean, you helped so much."

"Oooh~ Really? Okay," he beamed. "Just in case _I_ get The Haze, right?"

"Right."

~~

It was a good thing Ariadna's hearing loss was nearly complete without her aids. Otherwise, she would have to listen to her mother yelling into the phone, demanding that her son come home at once and explain himself for running off in the middle of the night. As worked up as Maria was, her brain wasn't forming sentences in English very effectively and she had switched to her native Spanish early on in the conversation. 

On the other end, a scratchy-voiced Dude was trying to explain, also in Spanish, that he was perfectly fine and staying with a friend because he wanted some space for a couple of days. No matter what he said, though, it didn't seem like Maria was willing to be convinced at all. 

"I know you're upset, hijo, but I won't have you running away from this!" she said in a moment of relative calm somewhere near the middle of the phone call. "We can talk about this, but not if you're not home. Where are you right now? Which friend are you staying with? Do I know them?" 

"No, Mamá, you don't know him," Dude answered hesitantly, fully expecting her to disapprove of the fact. He was right, of course, and she demanded to at least know where he was staying so she could come and get him if necessary. "I-- I can't tell you that, Mamá--"

"What? Why not? Hijo, I will not have you missing school and dropping off the face of the Earth!" In the background, Ariadna breezed past her mother to grab a glass and fill it with tap water. She didn't need to be able to hear to know that things were getting heated and not looking all that good for Dude in his predicament. "You're better than that, hijo! I didn't raise you to be truant!"

"Mamá, it's more important than you think--" he tried, but was cut off with more of the same exclamations. Finally, having had enough of this, he rolled his eyes and whispered a short and fast spell into the phone's receiver, which transferred directly to Maria's ear and quieted her shouting. Her eyelids drooped sleepily, and while the phone didn't leave her ear, her grip on it slackened noticeably. "I need you to listen to me. Are you listening?"

Maria weakly hummed an affirmative.

"Good. Dude is completely fine. He had permission from the school to miss classes on Friday because of a school field trip. This field trip is lasting for five days, but he will call you every so often to check in. You do not have anything to worry about. Do you understand what I am saying to you?"

She hummed again, her eyes glazed over with a strange dullness. 

"Good. Now, I'm going to hang up the phone, and you are going to return to life as normal. Three, two, one."

_Click._

Maria blinked rapidly, her grip on the phone returning to its natural strength as she heard the rhythmic beeping that denoted an ended call. For some reason, she couldn't quite remember what had ended their conversation, but Dude had mentioned something about a field trip and having permission... 

Ariadna stepped into her mother's view and signed her name questioningly along with "Are you okay?" Maria stared back at her daughter for a few seconds too long before nodding. It seemed as if she had to snap out of a second stupor before she found her tongue-- well, her hands. 

"I'm fine," she signed. "Dude is on a trip for five days. He will be back after that."

"I never heard anything about a trip," Ari commented, one eyebrow lifted higher than the other. 

Maria shrugged. "He has the school's permission. I guess this means it's just you and me for now. What should we have for dinner?"

~~

"I just-- I give up. Camry, go get your camera. We're returning it to the store." 

" _What?_ " Camry exclaimed, launching to her feet and balling her hands into fists at her sides. "But, Mom--!"

"Don't argue with me, missy," Sadie Dowell snapped back, clearly irritated beyond any willingness to discuss the matter. "This is your punishment for ditching etiquette class today. As it stands, you and Saoirse are going to be at a remedial class all day Sunday." 

In response to the injustice-fueled rage bubbling up inside of her, Camry could vaguely sense her ghostly core threatening to start boiling deep down, like the core of the planet. If she hadn't already had a few months' worth of practice under her belt, there would have undoubtedly been smoke curling up from her bone-white knuckles. "But you don't understand! We were worried about Dude, Mom!"

"Worried about him?" Sadie repeated skeptically, her arms crossed over her chest. "What in the world could you possibly have to worry about Dude?" 

"He... He was ignoring Saoirse and me, so we met up with him at the mall," Camry answered, slowly simmering down as that earlier weight of impending loneliness extinguished her inner fire. "We wanted to talk with him, that's all." 

"You could have talked to him _any_ time other than during etiquette class," her mother pointed out, obviously not entirely buying the story. "Honestly, Camry-- _my_ cotillion was so much _fun_. I don't understand why you're digging your heels in like this." 

Never let it be said that Camirelle Lidiare Dowell is not as stubborn as she is anxious. "Maybe because it sucks to be bossed around by someone who's hated your guts since day one," she shot back. "Mrs. Bosch has it out for me, Mom!"

Sadie scoffed at the idea. "Come on, Camry, don't be so _dramatic_. It's etiquette, not _boot camp_. Now, go get your camera. We're done discussing this."

Officially dismissed, Camry stomped up to her room and grit her teeth harder when her mother tacked on a quip of "And no stomping, young lady! You're _sixteen_ , not _six!_ " It took every ounce of willpower in her not to slam her bedroom door shut and then blast it to bits with a well-aimed fireball. Oh, if only her parents knew what she could do and what she really was... 

Nevertheless, her tight grip on her bedcovers left behind charred handprints and the smell of burning cloth that lingered on the air for at least an hour. Camry yanked the blankets off of her bed and flung them onto the floor, but just the thick fabrics fighting her wasn't enough of an outlet for her anger. Half of her mind was made up to just throw the window open and jump out into the cooling evening breeze-- to just run in a long patrol around town and blow off her steam in whatever way presented itself along the way. Seconds before she was about to let the twin hoops of orange-tinted light take her human half away and replace it with her undead side, the doorknob of her room turned and stopped her heart dead in her chest for a handful of seconds. The door opened a few inches so Sadie could peer inside and assess the room. 

"Can I come in?" Even in the middle (or tail end) of an argument, at least her parents still respected her privacy. 

"... I'll come out," Camry grumbled, giving her upturned bedsheets a grumpy kick that also served to cover the smoldering handprints. Sadie stepped back to let Camry out, and the daughter closed the door behind her to lean back on it. "What is it?"

"It sounded like you have something big on your mind about Dude," Sadie admitted. "I know it's not my job to pry into his life, but I was wanting to know that you two are okay. I know he means a lot to you, Cammie." 

For fear of her mother reading her mind, Camry averted her gaze to the side and sighed. "He's... fine. He wasn't speaking to me or Saoirse for a couple of days, and earlier today he kinda--" Exploded into smoke, "--disappeared for a while. We panicked and got a hold of him, so we made plans to meet up at Delta Pin and figure out what was going on. It just turns out that he's got a cold or something, so he was keeping his distance... I guess." 

Sadie let out a heavy breath and nodded. "Okay, that's good. I'm glad you two aren't fighting, or anything like that."

"No, we're cool," Camry assured her nonchalantly. 

Hands on her hips, Sadie squared her shoulders. "And is there anything _else_ you want to tell me?"

The way she spoke so pointedly sent another bolt of panic straight through Camry's chest. Oh no, how had she found out about the half-ghost thing? How long had she known? Did Mum tell her? 

"I'm sorry about how I wasn't listening to what you were saying, Cammie. I'm not as angry anymore, and I want to hear why you think Mrs. Bosch has it out for you."

It was all she could do to try and look casually composed when she met her mother's eye. 'Oh, thank god, she wasn't talking about _that_.'

~

**So whats your sentence**

Saoirse smirked at Camry's obvious lack of proper punctuation and quickly typed out a reply. _You're just lucky they didn't take my phone away_  
Def gonna have to postpone the Relle collab   
My poor fans (TT^TT) 

**Awww! I was so looking forward to that!!** Camry complained, mirroring her girlfriend's use of emoji in triplicate. **Oh well. Any other damage?**

_Not too much, I guess. P much grounded until school's over for the year :/_

**SERIOUSLY???! That sucks!!**

Saoirse sent a shrugging emoji before tapping out a full response. _Yeah, but it's not like WE have to worry about that. ;)_

**This is true  
I'm just glad we figured out what was up with Dude tbh **

_Same_ , Saoirse answered with a faint smile on her lips. _Kinda silly to think he's a witch right??_

It wasn't until after a short pause that the little dots appeared onscreen, signifying that Camry was finally replying. **I mean... I still dunno**

_What do you mean?_

**It's just-- I dunno, Seersh. It's still weird to me, yknow? Like why would they say that about him if it isnt truck?**

She didn't need to hear her girlfriend to know exactly how she would sound if they were actually talking face-to-face. 

***true**

_Because they're lying to you??_  
Cmon Cam you can't trust them  
Maybe they made it up to throw you off 

**I mean yeah I wouldn't put it past them to try something like that  
But you didn't see the looks on their faces when they were talking about witches in the GZ  
And they literally called a TRUCE to tell me about it like what???  
I know its super sketchy but I don't think they were lying about that**

Saoirse's frown deepened at that, but she refrained from replying with something to dismiss the other ghosts in their entirety. Camry did have a point in that no one else had really seen the looks on their faces or talked with them directly about this subject. Even so, this _had_ to be some sort of setup! 

~~

Late that evening, as Kordelle readied for bed, he wondered if Dude would continue with his cycle of staying up until all hours of the night to study magic. 'It's not a healthy habit, even for a witch with his kind of energy.'

Speak-- or, think of the devil. A knock on Kordelle's bedroom door prompted him to say, "C'mon in!" Dude poked his head in to take stock of the environment before coming in and closing the door behind him. "'Sup, mate? How was potion-making with Allie?"

" _Awesome_ ," Dude gushed, taking a seat on the floor where a space just large enough for a person's rear had been cleared among the minefield of books. "I really learned a lot! And some of those ingredients are so _weird_ , y'know? Where the heck do you _get_ something like 'powdered majesty of Parthenon?'"

"From the Parthenon," Kordelle answered with a slight smirk turning up one corner of his thin lips. "It's not easy to sift through the rubble for something worth enough for a potion. You have to find something that was majestic but was crushed or crumbled away. The memories and significance of what it used to be have a lot of value to a witch."

The look on Dude's face was not unlike the video of the cat that had the flower put on its head. "You're kidding me."

Kordelle's smile widened. "I'm really not, mate."

" _Yoooo!_ " Dude crowed until a quick wave of Kordelle's hand caused his voice to taper off. "A-ha, oops. Sorry. Okay, but I wanted to ask you more about the whole language thing. Like, how is that even _possible?_ Languages are important to the brain so I figured you'd be the best person to talk to."

Pride swelled in the more experienced witch's chest, which he could hardly refrain from puffing out. "Well, you're not wrong. So, witches come from all over the world; we speak all kinds of languages and learn magic from a hundred thousand sources. Even so, with us having to stay in hiding for our own safety, we don't get to have all that much contact with other clans and covens. Most of what we learn nowadays is from the books that we take care of and pass down.

"But there's a problem with that: a lot of the books are in languages that are foreign, dead, or a combination of both. But we can't lose that knowledge, right?" Dude, a rapt listener, mutely shook his head. "Right. It would be awful, and sometimes even fatal. That's why witches, over thousands of years ago, developed an innate ability to learn a new language almost _instantly_. All it takes is a direct translation of a few simple words or phrases, and right away you've got the entire language down in your head like it was your first."

"And literally _all_ witches can do that?" Dude gasped, leaning forward without even thinking about it. Endellion nodded, looking pleased with both himself and his 'student.' 

"It's true. If you hadn't already learned Ancient Greek today, I would offer to teach you another one right now." 

Dude shrugged his shoulders. "It was in one of the books I read last night. A translation note was at the bottom of a page, and then it was like _BAM!_ I could read the book! I honestly thought I was going crazy, so I slept it off and kinda forgot about it. Then Allie explained it to me when I asked her if something was wrong with my brain-- I think that's when you came back from wherever you went earlier today." 

"Oh, right," he remembered, hoping against hope that Dude wouldn't think to ask him where he had gone. After all, meeting up with Dude's friends behind his back while wearing an illusion in order to gather information would look pretty bad in most circumstances. 

Thankfully, the matter was let go before it could have really been grabbed in the first place. "And... you were more or less kidding about the whole "brain exploding" thing from earlier, right?"

"III meeean..." Kordelle drawled, not meeting Dude's eyes directly. "It won't, like, _actually_ explode with an impact or a real explosion. Buuut... you could, theoretically, suffer some brain damage from a mental overload. A language is hard enough for a human to learn, and even though we're witches, we're not all _that_ much different from humans." 

"Isn't that dangerous, though?" Dude asked, worry knitting his brows together. "We hear new things all the time nowadays-- our world is so connected with technology! What if we accidentally hear or read something before we've waited long enough to learn a new language?"

Kordelle waved a hand flippantly and reached over with it to adjust an empty picture frame sitting on his nightstand. "It's not as easy to learn a new one as you might think. You've got to read or hear a certain amount of _directly translated_ words, which isn't exacty as common as you're probably thinking."

Now a little more reassured in his safety, Dude relaxed, allowing his shoulder and facial muscles to loosen. "Okay, that's a relief. Then, how many languages do _you_ know?" 

"Uhmmm..." Kordelle froze, Australian Boulder Opal eyes wide as he realized that he wasn't quite sure about the exact number. He stripped his socks off his feet and flung them behind him carelessly; they hit the wall his bed was pressed against and slid down between the wall and bedframe. Then he was counting on his fingers _and_ toes, all the while muttering the names of languages under his breath. "English, Spanish, French, Tagalog, Mandarin, Ancient and Modern Greek, Hebrew, German, Catalan, Sioux, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Russian..." The list lasted long enough for him to use all twenty of his fingers and toes before he reached a final total: "Twenty-two."

"You're kidding me," Dude whispered. Apparently, it was his phrase of the day, not that anyone could blame him for being so in awe all the time. The secret world of witches was a wonder to behold and one so few ever got to witness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *rubbing hands together* All according to keikaku  
> *Translator's note: keikaku means plan  
> *Dude is suddenly speaking fluent Japanese* 
> 
> Ahaha no but seriously! What do you guys think of the story so far? A lot has happened in only a few chapters, but at the same time it also doesn't feel like too much has happened at all... I promise there will be some more action coming up soon, so stick around for it, okay? 
> 
> And sorry for the slow updates, but summer is only ond week away so I will be freed up for more writing soon! I can't wait~


	14. Chapter 14

Just as he had done twenty times before, Endellion whispered a short but powerful spell down into the nearly-finished knot resting in his hands. As he chanted, he picked up the final asphodel seed and pressed it into the cradle of the knot. With it firmly secured, he tightened his crude creation one last time and finished the incantation. Almost immediately, a soft white light began to glow from the entire rope's length; even with so many knots tied into it, it stretched almost thirty feet from end to end. 

Endellion slumped back in his chair and let out a relieved breath. "I thought it would never be over!" 

Fan Liu grinned at him from her perch on a three-legged stool beside her workbench. "Very impressive work, especially for your first time."

"I thought _those_ were my first times," he corrected mirthfully with a jab of his thumb over at the discarded lengths of white rope that had gathered into a tangled pile. As per the delicacy of the spell and importance of its absolute perfection, if he made a mistake anywhere down the line he had to start over lest the ghost find his mistake and escape through it. 

"Your first _successful_ time," Fan Liu amended, also smiling at his quip. "So, tell me your plan for capturing and commanding your target. I'm curious to know what you have in store for it."

Endellion rose from the wooden chair and walked over to the bench, where he selected another piece of white rope. "It isn't entirely formed in my head yet, but I do know that it's going to require another one of these."

Fan Liu leveled a stern look at him. "Are you sure you're not biting off more than you can chew, Endellion? You're going to have enough on your plate with controlling just _one_ ghost."

Even so, the grin on his face was confident and boyish. "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. I've got until Friday-- almost a whole week. I'll have this down by then. And besides," He pulled a section of the rope taut, making it shake like a plucked guitar string, "my plan requires a second angle."

~~

It was a pleasant Saturday morning for most in Bailey Lake. The sun was shining with little to no threat of a springtime shower on the horizon. The lake's surface was like glass, so still and reflecting the sunlight effortlessly. To the more perceptive citizens, staring hard and long into an exact spot in the water could lend them a faint flicker of green brighter than the natural shades of the water itself. Then again, most were too busy relaxing on towels or throwing frisbees to their dogs on the pebbled beachfront to notice or care. 

For one particular girl, however, this Saturday was a kick in the teeth as she had been directed into the car and driven with her mother to the mall, where they were about to return the camera and go shopping at a boutique for a last-minute cotillion gown. Watching the return process was painful for poor Camry and left her in a sulky, childish mood even as she was dragged into the classy boutique. There they were greeted the second the door opened with a faint bell's jingle, and a peppy saleslady snatched them under her wing immediately. 

"So, what're you two lovely ladies looking for today?" she asked cheerfully, looking back and forth between them like she was trying to guess who the dress or dresses would be for. 

"We need a dress for a cotillion that's coming up in less than a week," Sadie Dowell answered readily, patting her surly daughter on the shoulder for a brief second. "So, something that's classy and easy enough to dance and dine in." 

"But functional," Camry tacked on quickly. As per the usual, her concerns were more geared toward whether she could fight in it if necessary. 

"Classy, functional, dancing," the saleslady murmured as she jotted down the key phrases on a clipboard. Her name tag pinned to the lapel of her shirt described her as "Iris." Iris nodded at the same time as scrawling the last letter of 'dancing.' "Perfect! And any thoughts on a neckline style? We have some catalogs you can flip through if you're not entirely sure on anything yet."

Sadie and Camry shared a quick look to which Camry shrugged in a noncommittal way. "Either a sweetheart or straight across neckline, probably," Sadie decided. "This isn't _quite_ our first time dress shopping together." 

Iris smiled at that, as did Sadie. "Alright, I'll go check the racks for anything good. While I'm gone, if you would fill out the size and color preference forms then that would be a big help." On that note, they were led to the fitting room and handed the proper forms, all of which were passed to Camry so she could do as she pleased. Still steamed from watching her camera being taken from her, she had to suck in a deep breath and let it out slowly to avoid setting the wooden pencil on fire. Even so, her marks on the pages were unnecessarily heavy and threatened to pierce the paper. 

Sadie, upon noticing the stormy look on her daughter's downcast face, stifled a tired sigh and set her lips in a thin line. "I know you're mad at me right now, but let's try to have some fun with this, okay?"

Camry hummed quietly at that, and though Sadie so wanted to demand an actual verbal response, she refrained. After their arguing the day before, it would feel too much like picking an unnecessary fight with her daughter. "What colors do you have in mind, Cammie?" 

"Pink," Camry answered after a few seconds of contemplation. "Light pink."

"Aww, that will look so cute with your blonde hair," Sadie commented brightly. "Any others?"

"Nope," she said. "It's not like they'll have a shortage of pink dresses, anyway."

Sadie frowned in contemplation at that. "True... Still, try to think of other options. It's always good to have a back-up plan, just in case."

"Mmhm," Camry intoned, still checking off boxes and scribbling notes on the forms. 

It must have been almost ten minutes before Iris returned with a few options draped over her arms. "Thanks for your patience-- prom season really cleaned us out of our sweetheart and straight across dresses," she said with a little laugh. "So, here are some options to consider-- and don't worry, these aren't the only colors and sizes they come in, either."

"That's good, 'cause I know I definitely want something pink," Camry commented as she eyed the various shades of blue, purple, and red that comprised Iris' selections. One by one, Iris hung the dresses by their hangers on the wall of displaying, which was blank save for the rows upon rows of little hooks that projected outward. 

"Pink would look _great_ with your hair color!" Iris chirped with a backwards glance over her shoulder. Sadie suppressed a smirk at that, and Camry simply nodded. "Okay, so, tell me if you see anything you like about any of these dresses. Once we get a basic idea of the look you're going for, we can start to work on narrowing down our options." 

The boutique had done a great job of training her, because Iris' intuition found them the perfect dress remarkably quickly with the promise that it would be ready for pick-up a few days before the big night. Despite her irritation at the loss of her camera earlier that day, Camry still couldn't help smiling at the mental image of her soon-to-be-hers dress being shipped in A.S.A.P. 'Oooh, the look on Saoirse's face when she sees it will be so excellent!' 

She also had to wonder what Saoirse's dress would look like, seeing how the much taller girl had refused to reveal any details. "It'll be a surprise!" had been her reasoning. 

'Fair enough, but that means I'm keeping my dress a secret, too.' 

~~

That same Saturday morning, after sleeping in a little longer than usual and eating a delicious breakfast that Allie had so generously prepared for everyone in the house, Kordelle went up to his room with the initial intent of picking apart the highly advanced textbooks on brain anatomy waiting for him. Instead, he found Dude rifling through the stacks of tomes he had left on the floor, turning them over and shaking them out urgently. Despite how he figured that Dude had no ill will behind his snooping, Kordelle felt a little bit of a defense flare up in his chest.

"What're you doing, Dude?" he inquired from the doorway, and Dude, without missing a beat, tossed a good-morning wave over his shoulder while his familiars popped into existence. They grabbed a book and did the exact same things that Dude's flesh and blood hands were doing.

"Trying to find my phone," he explained without looking up. "Urgh, I _swear_ I left it in one of these books...! Have you seen it, Kory? It's got a striped case with some concentric circles in one corner."

Of course he had seen it. It was actually in the pocket of Kordelle's jacket, which was hanging from a bedpost oh so casually like it was meant to be there. Internally, Kordelle flinched, though he didn't let anything show on his face; _of course_ he had overlooked this. How did he not see something like this coming? 

"Oh, uh, I don't think so," he blatantly lied as he moved to stand next to his bed and, more importantly, his jacket. With all of Dude's attention focused on the books, Kordelle went unnoticed as he slid the phone up into his hand and got on his knees to 'help look.' 

"I haven't checked that stack yet," Dude offered with a quick gesture to his right. Kordelle nodded and walked on his knees to the indicated spot, where he used a stack of books as cover. While trying to look inconspicuous, he grabbed a volume and opened it before dropping the phone onto his carpeted floor, where it bounced loudly and made Dude whip his head around and look. "You found it!"

"It was only a matter of time," Kordelle said easily, picking up the device and passing it to his friend. "Are you gonna call your mom or something?"

Dude nodded, already opening the phone and navigating to the calling app. "Yeah, I've been so preoccupied with learning magic that I _totally_ forgot to let her know I'm okay! I feel terrible... She's probably going to tell me I need to come home, too."

"Well, I can probably convince her to let you stay," Endellion offered casually, taking a seat on the edge of his bed and crossing one leg over the other. 

"With magic?" Dude asked with just a hint of suspicion evident in his tone. 

"No, no, by talking," Kordelle snickered. "C'mon, I can do things _without_ magic." 

By then the phone was ringing, so with it pressed up against his ear Dude only nodded absentmindedly. After four rings, another voice at the end answered with a weary but pleasant, "Hello?"

"Hi, Mamá," Dude said softly. A look of familial affection passed over his face at the sound of her voice. Was he starting to feel homesick? "Sorry I haven't checked in with you."

"It's alright, mijo!" Maria assured him cheerfully, much to her son's surprise. "I'm sure you've been having a lot of fun these last couple of days. You aren't just eating junk food and staying up all night, right?"

He had to physically shake off his shock in order to find his tongue and answer. "Oh, uh, no, I'm eating healthy food. Staying up, though, uh... eheheh." His awkward chuckle tapered off, and his mother sighed.

"Mijo, get some rest! Really, I swear, if you could you would _never_ sleep!" Even as she was technically scolding him, her tone with mirthful. "You've always been that way, you know. Ari would sleep at the drop of a hat, but you would _always_ fight to stay up later and later as a toddler."

"Well, I've always had a lot of energy to use up," Dude pointed out. At the back of his mind, he couldn't help but be incredulous that he was getting off the hook so effortlessly! There had to be a catch somewhere, right? "Mamá, you're not mad at me?" 

"No, I'm not," she said gently. "I definitely want to talk to you more about, uh, your father when you get back, but I'm not mad at you. Just enjoy your stay and come home safe, alright?"

If he could have, he would have simply nodded in answer. This didn't seem _real!_ How was she _not_ mad at him for sneaking out in the middle of the night and basically dropping off of the grid for a few days? "Uh, right, right. Definitely!"

"I love you, Dude."

"Love you, too, Mamá."

They hung up at the same time, but Dude took a few seconds to just stare at the cell in his hand. ' _What_...?' 

During the conversation, Kordelle had lifted up one of his books from among the chaos of his room and picked up where he left off. When Dude had hung up, Kordelle looked at him over the top of his book to try and gauge his thoughts; using his mental magic would have made it so much easier, but as he had said before, he could do things _withoutis_ spring break," Kordelle pointed out casually. "Do you want to stay for the whole break?"

"I don't know if my mom would let me," Dude reasoned, tapping the top of his phone against the apex of his chin. 

"Then how about until Friday?" he offered. "That'll give you plenty of time to learn more magic before school starts up again, and you'll still have some time to spend with your family before the break is over."

Dude didn't have to mull it over for long before he beamed back at Kordelle. "That sounds perfect, actually! And the cotillion is this Friday, so Camry and Saoirse will be freed up to hang out, too! You can totally tag along with us if you want, man."

"Sure thing," Kordelle answered. His thoughts, completely masked from his expression, told a very different story. 

'We'll see about Camry being 'freed up' to hang out after the cotillion. She may not even exist after Friday night.'

~

"Wait, why do you need even _more_ seeds?" Allie inquired as she stood up straight, a watering can in one hand. She and Kordelle stood in her backyard greenhouse, where the plants were thriving through her loving and constant care. Her otter familiar scampered among the flowers and herbs merrily, making small squeaky noises every so often when she found something new to look at. "I mean, I would say they don't grow on trees, but some of them actually _do_ , so... Still, this is a lot of blood blossoms." 

His voice was muffled by the bandana tied around the lower half of his face. "I know, but it's for something really important that Fan Liu's teaching me. Do you have at least twenty-one more?"

Not unlike a petulant child, Allie groaned and set down her watering can next to the potted plant she had been about to tend to. "Fine, but they might not all be from the same type of flower. I don't have _that_ many blood blossoms." 

"It's fine," he assured her. "It doesn't matter what plant they are-- they just need to be unsprouted." 

"Lucky for you," she murmured with a roll of her Matrix Opal eyes. She led him around to the back corner of the greenhouse, which had been set aside for all of the blood blossoms she kept in her organic arsenal. There were sunflowers, roses, daisies, daffodils, and about a dozen others sectioned off with twine and tag labels. A menacing red aura wafted into the air from the plants, whose normally green bodies had taken on a blackish tinge as a result of the bewitchment. The petals were unchanged, which gave the flowers some interesting color contrasts. 

She reached under a wooden palette and fished around for a second before pulling out a packet of seeds. The paper packaging labeled them as white daffodils and, in smaller letters, narcissus flowers. "I was hoping to save these for next spring, though..."

"Trust me, it's a good cause," Kordelle promised sincerely. 

Allie held back her questions about this 'cause' and instead shook out exactly twenty-one seeds into the palm of her hand. The tiny black beads then went into an empty terra cotta pot and were sealed up inside. With both hands placed on the lid, Allie closed her eyes and began an incantation she had more than enough practice with. A warm gust of wind, hotter than even the already humid temperature in the greenhouse, swept through the building and ruffled her long hair. By the time it had settled into place against her back and shoulders, the spell was over, and she lifted the lid to reveal twenty-one black seeds emitting a faint crimson aura. She reached in and picked them all out before shifting them into Endellion's cupped and expectant hands.

"There, twenty-one blood blossom seeds. _Please_ tell me you won't need any more after this."

"That's up to Fan Liu," he pointed out while poking a finger at the baby biological weapons clinking against each other in his palm. "Thanks, Allie. I owe you one."

"You can say that again," she retorted. "If you stay any longer, though, I'm gonna make you help me garden."

And he was out of there like a ghost was blasting ecto-energy at his heels. 

~~

Wednesday afternoon, two days before the cotillion~

Even after a brutal last four days of cotillion prep, during which Mrs. Bosch had achieved new heights of being unforgiving to Camry and Saoirse, there was still a sense of excitement in the air as Camry and her mother pushed open the boutique's doors and activated the little bell that announced their arrival. The store closed in a few minutes, but Sadie had picked Camry up a bit early from etiquette class to get her to the store in time to try on her dress. Cam wasn't complaining in the least bit about any of that.

Iris was at the counter, closing out sales records by the looks of the receipts laid out in front of her. She glanced up at the newcomers and put on an award-winning customer sales smile. "You're back! And just in time, too."

"Yup," Sadie answered brightly. "We know you close soon, but we just need to try on her dress before we take it home."

"Absolutely," Iris agreed, setting down her pencil and leading them back to the fitting rooms. When she returned to the duo, a pink bundle wrapped in plastic was draped across her forearm. She shed the plastic covering and handed it to Camry, who jumped into the nearest stall and got to work with shedding her usual clothes and trying on the new gown. 

"So, how does it fit, Cammie?" Sadie called through the door. 

"Hang on a sec," Cam answered, still finishing with zipping up the back and adjusting the neckline. She hadn't worn the right bra, so she looked a little silly to have navy blue straps coming out and over her shoulders, but otherwise it fit perfectly! "It looks great, Mom!"

"Let me see!" Sadie insisted, and Camry didn't hesitate to comply. She opened the door and turned slowly, letting her mom take in the dress from all angles. "Oh, honey, that looks so beautiful! _You_ look beautiful." 

The ever-bashful Camry hid her burning face with a hand and failed to suppress her growing grin. "Aww, Mom..."

Iris stepped in then and instructed Camry to stretch a couple of times in different ways to test the functionality and fit of the dress. She obeyed easily and was pleased to discover that it was just right for the job of dancing, dining, and, if the occasion called for it, perhaps even fighting. Despite having no straps to go over her shoulders, it didn't slip down her chest when her arms were raised, nor did it restrict her breathing. All in all, it was perfect. 

"Do you like it?" Iris asked. That, of course, was the big question. 

Camirelle grinned, putting her hands confidently on her hips. "I love it!"

Of course, it was impossible for her to have a casual, unexciting day out, wasn't it? The store was closing very soon, so Camry had to get changed back into her street clothes so they could leave and let Iris finish her shift. Back in the dressing room, she was pulling her shirt on over her head when a familiar hiccup jolted through her chest and filled her mouth with the pungent taste of ash and smoke. 

'You have _got_ to be kidding me' she thought dully, not even bothering to refrain from rolling her eyes peevishly. 'Now? _Seriously?_ Who the heck is it _this_ time?'

She wasted no time in gathering her things from the dressing room and banging the door open in her haste to get out. "Okay, we're good, Mom! Let's get outta here so we don't keep everyone later than they have to be."

"Yeah, let's let them close," Sadie agreed, picking up her purse and slinging it over one shoulder. "Thanks again for everything, Iris. We'll be asking for you next time we need a dress."

"Aww, thanks!" Iris laughed. "It was my pleasure."

Camry had to resist the urge to bounce on the balls of her feet as the two women chatted amicably. 'C'mon, _c'mon_ , Mom! We gotta _go!_ '

"I'll be out in the car!" Camry announced, taking the dress on its hanger out of the dressing room area and dashing outside, ringing the door's bell in the process. Sadie and Iris watched her go, twin confused expressions adorning their faces. 

Sadie let out a quiet sigh. "Sorry, she's always rushing around, especially lately."

Iris shrugged. "You already paid for the dress. There's nothing to worry about."

That's when a huge explosion made the earth quake and the light fixtures sway back and forth. Both ladies cried out in alarm; it had come from outside! Was another ghost attacking? 

Only seconds after the first one ended, a second earthquake shook the ground and goaded them to toddle their way to a window, which-- while inadvisable as the glass was a clear danger if it shattered-- gave them the perfect view of Relle and a ghost hashing it out up in the evening sky. Relle's opponent, roughly twice as tall as the hero ghost, had likely been of African descent, though her skin now took on a bluish tinge, and wielded two gigantic sewing needles like they were twin rapiers. A string was threaded through the eye of each needle and led back to spools that hung at her sides.

"I thought you guys were laying low until the witch threat passed!" Camry-- _Relle_ \-- yelled a split second after she twirled gracefully to avoid one of the needles when it was thrown like a spear. 

Mantua snickered and turned her wrist, guiding the weapon back into her hand while the thread tightened around Relle's middle, pinning her arms to her sides. "We are, but the Ghost Zone is so _boring_ \-- especially compared to beating you into a pulp!"

"Sorry to disappoint," Relle growled, gathering heated energy in her arms and channeling it with practiced ease. The thread caught fire and snapped the instant she flexed, freeing her from the measly trap. "But you're not beating me into a 'pulp' any time soon!"

"I wouldn't be so sure," Mantua said with a triumphant grin. Relle's volcanic fire continued to race up the string's length, leading back to one of the spools. She unhooked it with deft fingers and chucked the entire package at Relle, who squeaked and ducked. It sailed harmlessly over her head, but on its way down to earth it detonated and sent Relle flying with the shock wave. The heat itself was nothing compared to the core within her ethereal body, but without the ability to fly she was helpless to stop her psuedo-flight. Right when it seemed like she would have the chance to stop her descent with a film negative tile without suffering _too_ much pain, Mantua had zipped over to Relle's side and planted a solid double-fisted blow on her exposed back. Relle plummeted into the street in front of the boutique and put a decent-sized crater in the asphalt even as she struggled to rise. 

"I don't think this store will be needing all of these dresses. Do you?" Mantua asked rhetorically, her palm extended and facing the boutique. The front doors burst open in time with an ominous jingling sound as dozens upon dozens of possessed dresses, many still in their protective plastic sleeves, zoomed out into the air to gather around Mantua's hovering form. 

"Let's see," she began, already sounding a bit triumphant as she surveyed her new arsenal of fabric. "Ugh, so many sequins and rhinestones... Then again, they _do_ make good--"

Back on her feet and glaring up at Mantua, Relle was able to clearly see the exact point when her enemy's face shifted from calculating to terror stricken in the blink of an eye. Much like with Lord Batron, Mantua froze mid-sentence and dropped her attack, letting the gowns flutter uselessly to the street like a multicolored fabric snow storm. It was a bit hard to tell with her eyes being entirely black, including her scleras, but she seemed to be looking in all directions if her frantic motions were anything to go by. Perhaps now that she had also had a bit of experience with sensing a witch nearby, Relle could also tell that something didn't feel quite _right_ in the air. It was almost like how an animal can sense a storm approaching by feeling the change in barometric pressure; an instinct telling her to _hide_ was screaming in the back of her brain.

"This isn't over!" Mantua declared before turning tail and fleeing at top speed, vanishing between buildings on her way back to the lake. Relle was left behind, a bit too stunned to immediately move. 

_Hide!_ Relle sucked in a startled breath and dashed away to find a safe place where she could change back into Camry and reunite with her undoubtedly worried mother. 

Only a short distance away, but still just outside of the radius for triggering Camry's ghost sense, Shasta lurked in the late afternoon shadows of a brick building. She had watched the whole fight, if it could even be called that. All she had seen was Mantua get a few blows in before scampering back to the Ghost Zone. "Pfft," Shasta exhaled with a childish roll of her violet eyes. " _Lame_."

And then she knew exactly why Mantua had vacated so quickly. The sensation of danger, of _wrongness_ , drove an icy stake straight through to her core and snatched the unnecessary breath from her undead lungs. 'It's close!' she realized a beat too late. A shadow, deeper than the one she already hovered in, passed over her, but it was gone literally in a second. Without even a cry or a scream, Shasta disappeared along with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weeeeelllll... I know I promised you action, but that wasn't a LOT of action... Oh well, things are really gonna heat up in the next few chapters. It's already the Wednesday before Friday night's cotillion, and we know that a certain someone has a certain thing planned for it... >:0c
> 
> Please leave me a review (or two, or three) down below! They always make my day and are a huge encouragement to keep writing! Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next chapter!


	15. Chapter 15

Thursday afternoon~

The books were being devoured fast, and Dude had found a need to consume even more. This greed for knowledge had initially startled him, but after a number of days of living at the coven house, he had grown accustomed to it. This was probably just a side effect of being brought into this strange new world a little too quickly for his liking. 

Seated on a couch that had seen better days in the living room, Dude groaned after closing the last book he had to study. "Why don't I ever have the motivation to study this much on _schoolwork?_ " he wondered, though he knew exactly why. None of what school tried to teach him was nearly this interesting, nor did it have the cultural significance to his heritage. 

Having nothing left to read, he swung up onto his feet and padded over to the back door, where he expected to see Allie working somewhere in the yard or the gigantic greenhouse she almost singlehandedly maintained. He saw her on her knees by a flowerbed, practically elbow-deep in dirt and weeds she was wrangling. "Hey, Allie!" Dude called out.

"Yeah?" she answered similarly without turning around or looking over her shoulder. 

"Where are some more books I can read?" he asked. Though barefoot, he picked his way across the yard via the flat stones that made up a footpath that swung around pretty close to where Allie knelt. 

She sat back on her haunches and finally looked at him. "Did no one show you where the library is?"

"Kordelle did, but he told me not to go in there without someone else," Dude explained.

Allie made a face at that and rose, dusting her dirt-caked hands off on her capris. "That's dumb. As long as you don't read the books in the red bookcases or practice magic in there, you don't need anyone to go with you."

"What's in the red book shelves?" Dude blurted out before he could stop himself. 

"Stuff you're not allowed to know about until you become a coven leader," Allie explained easily. "Don't worry about it, Dude. There are lots of other books in the library."

"I know-- it's _huge!_ " he gasped, starry-eyed at just the memory he held. Magic had definitely been involved in the process of storing those books because it was _way_ too big of a room to feasibly fit inside the outwardly small house. "So you're sure it's okay if I just go in alone?"

"Yeah, go for it!" she said brightly. "Just don't get lost, okay?"

"If I'm not back in a few hours, you'll know where to look for me," he laughed, turning and leaving her with a wave over his shoulder. The library was on the first floor, though its entrance was obscured by an illusion of moving boxes stacked up in front of it. He stepped through the false image and turned the knob, entering a world of shelves stuffed to the brim with that old paper smell that was somehow both musty and enthralling. 

Dude ran a hand through his green fohawk and ruffled the dyed strands. 'Time to get to work. But what to read...?' Just browsing the stacks could take _days_ ; Dude couldn't help but be reminded of Adam's library in _Beauty and the Beast_ every time he looked around the impossible room. Each area was labeled with a broad topic and then split into smaller, more specific categories, some of which were made up entirely of personal field journals that were hundreds of years old and probably should have been interred in a museum. He clapped his hands together once, but immediately regretted how the sharp sound cut through the air too loudly for such a serene space.

As he wandered among the rows of shelves, his black opal eyes picked out the most intriguing books, but each time he saw something that might have held his interest, their titles etched in the spines only disappointed. _A Comprehensive Index of Potion Ingredients_ , _Humanity: The Myths We Hide Behind_ , _Hexing the Unsuspecting: A How-To Guide_ , _Anatomy of the Ghost_... 

"Wait," Dude murmured, pausing in his tracks and spinning back around to return to that specific book. With barely a second thought he snatched it off of the shelf and opened it to its contents page to scan the chapter titles. "What Is 'The Ghost?', Key Components, Their Broken Psyche And Purpose, Where Do They Come From?, Us vs. Them..." he read aloud, his brow furrowing seriously. "What?"

He found the right page number and flipped to the beginning of the second chapter, which started off with a hideous diagram of a humanoid monster with sharp claws, flaming hair, a tapering tail instead of a pair of legs, and soulless, hollow eyes. As he perused the diagram, he took note of how the artist had taken a very biased stance on what made a ghost what it is. As per the author's compiled observations, the first component of a ghost was ectoplasm, which was a biological anathema to all witches' magic. Even as the book tried to pass itself off as a scholarly text, it wandered off down a tangent on how a ghost's innate power was a foil to that of a witch. 

'But... I've never had any problem being around _Camry_ before...' he thought. On that note, he settled in on the floor with the book open on his lap and began to pore studiously over the pages. He just _had_ to know what the deal between witches and ghosts was. 

~

Fan Liu, the wizened witch leader, smiled as she took in the sight of the successfully captured and subdued ghost contained in the Mason jar resting on her work table. " _Very_ good work, Endellion. It looks like your plan is starting to take shape already."

"I've got it _all_ figured out," he boasted, puffing his chest out triumphantly and pulling a short length of one of his blood blossoms ropes taut for added effect. "As long as my control over them doesn't waver, and as long as no one interferes, this plan should work perfectly."

"I take it that you won't want my help with this, then," Fan Liu assumed with a smile. "This is a big step for you as a witch, Endellion. I'm proud of you."

He beamed at the praise and couldn't fight the growing smile on his face. "Thank you, Fan Liu. I won't let you down, either. I know I can take care of this ghost myself."

~ 

By the time he closed the book in his hands, it was because he felt too queasy to continue. The final chapter of _Anatomy of the Ghost_ had left him with even more questions, which had prompted him to go searching for the section dedicated to all things ghostly. When he finally found it all, the ratio of professionally bound books to ratty field journals had surprised him; a vast majority of what the witches knew about ghosts had come from personal observations made centuries ago. 

'I hope this doesn't mean it's all outdated' he'd thought, cracking open a tome titled _Notable Ghosts of the Past_. A few names jumped out at him in the index, though not out of any firsthand knowledge of who or what these 'notable ghosts' were. Mostly, he looked at the ones whose names sounded the coolest. Angel Staff, Pariah Dark, Thunderbird, and Prince Aragon were among the few that he glanced at. Their biographies were simple, cataloging their powers and weaknesses detailed through stories that had been tortured out of captive ghosts. That thought alone brought an unhappy frown to Dude's face. 

After he had finished flipping through that book, he moved on to another known simply as _Defense_. This one was a cache of spells and remedies for "taking care" of ghosts, whether a witch was up against one or an entire legion. The very first page was a map that unfolded until it was at least four feet long. Its charts were of the stars in both hemispheres, and numerous constellation groups had been circled in graphite. Hydra, Auriga, Canis Major and Minor, Monoceros, Cygnus-- their significance had to be immense if someone had singled them out on the map of such an old book. 

Out of that line up, Auriga was the first alphabetically, so Dude flipped to that constellation's page with barely a second thought. The first thing he noticed about the breakdown of the stars' alignment wasn't even the explanation itself, but, rather, the squiggly symbols etched into the paper all throughout the margins. If he blurred his vision, Dude could just barely see them shift and wave at him ever so slightly. 

"Just like Kordelle's notes..." he whispered, blinking multiple times to clear the spots from his eyes. "If he needed to write these so he could focus, this must be important.

"Declination... celestial equator... Winter Hexagon asterism-- what the heck does any of this mean?" he griped, his hold on the book tightening out of frustration. Was there something back at the front that would explain what this all meant? In earnest, Dude flipped to it and searched rapidly for anything that could reveal the significance of all these astronomical terms. Before he knew it, he had returned to Auriga's first pages and was disappointed in himself as well as the author. 

Even so, he knew he couldn't put this book back without finding out _something_. Why this was the case, he couldn't exactly be sure, but his energy levels were building deep inside as he stewed over this topic. All around him, dust motes drifted on the air and the overpowering musk of the old library filled his nose. When had it gotten so abrasive? He scratched at his nose angrily, trying to relieve some of the sensation that was starting to make his skin crawl. 

A small paragraph next to a drawing of the constellation caught his eye, and even though the writing was in Ancient Greek, he had absolutely no trouble in discerning its meaning now that he knew the language perfectly. 

"Auriga, the Charioteer, is one of the most effective powers to channel in order to force a ghost's passing into the aether," he read aloud under his breath. "Its neighbor, Gemini, a representation of the duality between man and ghost, lends auxiliary power when Auriga is invoked. If called upon during the Aurigids or Delta Aurigids meteor shower, not even the most high-ranking ghost on the ectoplasmic plane can fight it off." 

On the next page, another diagram without the illustration of the Charioteer labeled all its stars and numbered the major ones in a list from one to six: Hassaleh, Alnath, Hoedus, Capella, Theta Auriga, Menkalinan. Motions accompanied the chant, as illustrated on the opposite page, which ended in a generic representation of a ghost being struck by what appeared to be a white light. The ghost was very clearly screaming, its hands clapped over its eyes even as its body was halfway through the process of complete disintegration. 

As he stared at the drawing for a moment, a slightly different picture took shape, superimposed over the textbook. This ghost was shorter, much stockier than the wraithlike stereotype Dude had seen in countless tomes already, and wore a superhero outfit made of mostly monochromatic clothing. Dude's stomach lurched suddenly and he slammed the book shut, no longer caring how loud he was being in such an offensively quiet space. 

He couldn't put the book back in its place on the shelf fast enough. "What the fuck...?" he muttered, eyes wide and his head bowed as he hung onto the bookcase for support. What the hell was going on with his head all of a sudden? Had he stared at the page too long? Were those concentration sigils giving him a headache? 

And... why had he envisioned Camry in that ghost's place? Was he just getting homesick and this was his brain's way of telling him that he needed a break from magic?

He clapped a hand over his eyes and let it drag down his face to rest over his mouth, which was firmly set in a frown. 'I need to get some sleep. Maybe I should go home tonight, too.'

~~

"Wait, what's the matter?" 

Allie had prepared a hearty dinner for everyone to enjoy, and for once Fan Liu had decided to join them rather than take a portion down to her basement study. Her motherly if hawkish presence was unusual at the dinner table, but it was obvious by how Kordelle and Allie were smiling that they enjoyed having everyone together at the table. 

However, looking down at the Crock-Pot stew steaming in the bowl before him, Dude had yet to take a bite. Suffice to say that Allie noticed. "You're not feeling sick, are you?"

"A little bit, actually," Dude admitted, resting an elbow on the table and putting his cheek in his hand. 

"You might have caught The Haze," Fan Liu suggested, her gravelly voice taking on a tone of seriousness. "I've seen how hard at work you've been for the past week, but you can overload your conduit that way."

"I dunno... I think my magic's fine," Dude said softly. "Maybe it's cabin fever..."

"Are you thinking of going back home a little early?" Kordelle guessed, hitting the nail on the head as per the usual. 

"Maybe," Dude murmured, picking up his spoon and taking a bite. The food was good, as was all of Allie's cooking, but it didn't carry that taste of home that he had grown to miss. "I mean, I dunno. They probably are missing me at home."

"Won't your mom ask questions if you come back early?" Kordelle pointed out between casually blowing on a spoonful of stew. 

"Hmm..." Dude hummed. The forefront of his brain was still so preoccupied by that vision from before that it didn't occur to him that his mother shouldn't have any reason to know exactly when he was planning on coming home. On that same note, how had she been so casual during their phone conversation the day before, anyway? He had literally disappeared in the middle of the night and only vaguely hinted at where he might be, giving no solid details whatsoever. "I guess she might... I can make up something though. A stomach bug?"

"If you are leaving, be sure to take some cleanser with you," Allie said, using one hand to hide the half-chewed food in her mouth. "Just in case."

"For sure," he agreed. 

"I'll walk you home, then," Kordelle offered. "When you're ready to go. I know there are a few things I need to tell you about before you go back home."

There was no point in objecting, and the thought of not having to walk alone brightened Dude's spirits a bit. Knowing that it was going to be his last meal in the house for at least a while, he tucked in with a bit more gusto and polished off his bowl in no time. Roughly half an hour later, all packed up and ready to go, Dude waved goodbye to Fan Liu and Allie and thanked them for everything. "I'll come back soon. I promise."

"I can't wait!" Allie said, a hopeful smile on her young face. "I've _gotta_ show you the greenhouse when the weather gets warmer-- there'll be a _ton_ of new plants, which means there'll be new spells and potions I can show you!"

"Sweet!" Dude cheered. "Now _I_ can't wait either! See you soon, okay?"

"Bye~!" Allie called out. The front door clicked shut, sealing off the inside of the house entirely. 

A pleasantly cool breeze wafted by as the two teens started on their way down the path that led to the rarely-traveled street. By then, Dude knew not to talk about magic outside of the safe house, so their conversations were a bit on the sparse side. Whenever he tried to think of a safe topic, he turned up something that petered out quickly. 

"... Is something the matter?" he eventually asked after they disembarked from the L-Tram at the station nearest to Dude's apartment complex. "You've been really quiet."

Kordelle shrugged minimally and didn't meet the other boy's eyes very eagerly. "It's nothing, mate. Just... I'm thinking. There's a meteor shower coming up tomorrow night, and it can mess with-- well, you know. The house already has plenty of protective seals all around it, but your apartment has _nothing_."

"You think something's going to happen if there aren't any seals on my house?" Dude queried. 

"It's possible," Kordelle answered, a pensive frown on his lips. "Maybe I should put some up before I leave. Just in case, of course."

Dude readjusted his the lapels of his well-loved jacket and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "It's cool with me, man. And hey, you can show me and my sister how it's done! I bet she'd love that."

"Sure," he agreed. Kordelle followed along mutely as Dude led the way to the third floor and the right door, which was about a dozen doors away from the elevator. His impressively active brain made small mental notes as he scanned the scenes, judging where exactly would be the best places for the ancient runes he would soon be drawing. 

Dude's key clicked open the door, and with an overly enthusiastic flourish he welcomed his new friend into his family's cluttered apartment. "Sorry about it being a little on the messy side," he apologized awkwardly. "I was supposed to do some cleaning, but, uh, you know. I was elsewhere."

"It's alright," Kordelle assured him. "Besides, a messier place means there are more hiding spots for runes. But where are your mom and sister?"

That was an excellent point; all the lights in the house were off, and save for the struggling hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, all was silent throughout the apartment. "I dunno," Dude said. "Hang on, I'm gonna go take a look around. Go ahead and get started on the runes if you want, 'kay?" He slid his shoes off with a practiced fluidity and padded out of sight, presumably to check the bedrooms as well as the rest of the house. Meanwhile, Kordelle crouched down next to the front door's frame and pulled a white wax pencil out of his pocket. He got to work quickly, etching the jagged, near-invisible runes into the shadows around the main entrance. 

Dude returned on less than silent feet and leaned over Kordelle's shoulder, resting his chin on the available space there. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Just the preliminary runes," he said without even a hitch in his scrawling. "The main door is the most important one to protect. Then, I'll put a rune in the corner of every room, which should do the trick. It's kind of a simpler version of what the coven's house has."

"Oh, neat," Dude commented breezily. "Can I help?"

"That's okay," Kordelle said. "Just watch. It'll take less time if I just show you how it's done."

The entire process only took about twenty minutes and involved a good bit more teamwork than Kordelle had expected as, even though he was roughly six-foot-even in height, the apartment's nooks and crannies were difficult to reach without at least a little of Dude's assistance. Still, twenty minutes and three pencil sharpenings later, the wax seals were in place and taking silent, undetected effect. 

"Cool!" Dude cheered. "What exactly are these seals gonna protect against?"

"Ghosts trying to break in, mostly," Kordelle answered easily. "But they should also counteract different natural phenomena, too, like meteor showers and ley line fluctuations. I'll teach you about those another time, though."

"Oh, uh, okay," he said before disguising his discomfort with a cough. They would keep ghosts out, huh? Even a half-ghost like Camry? Neither she nor Saoirse had ever been to his house before, but they had been planning on some sort of eventual party together; that clearly wouldn't be possible if the house itself kept Camry from coming in. "Sounds good to me."

"Well, I'd better get going before it gets any darker," Kordelle noted. "Try to stay inside as much as possible until the meteor shower is over, okay? That should be this Saturday evening."

Dude clapped a hand on the taller boy's shoulder. "Thanks for everything, Kory. I'll see you in class, huh?"

"For sure," Kordelle agreed, then gasped ever so slightly when the minimal contact turned into a big bear hug. How in the world did Dude's skinny arms have so much deceptive strength in them? For the lack of physical contact that Kordelle was used to and comfortable with, this was... unexpected. Dude smelled like the evening air and eucalyptus soap.

"'Kay!" Dude said brightly as he pulled away. "See ya 'round, Kory."

"Bye," Kordelle answered, letting himself out and gently closing the door behind him. 

However, before he started the journey back home, he pulled the wax pencil out of his pocket once more and scratched one more seal at the top of the door frame, then placed his right middle and ring fingers against it for all of three seconds. At his touch, it began to glow with a faint aqua blue light that faded the second he pulled away. He drew his hand back to his chest and let out a sigh. The pencil and both of his hands went into his pockets, and with his head bent forward slightly in determination, he began to hurry down the hall. 

'Sorry for lying to you, Dude, but this is important. You can't know what I'm doing until it's already done. I know you'll thank me for this later, after she's not around to pull the wool over your eyes anymore.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY for how late this is! At least it's summer now, and I've got my writing spark back!
> 
> Please leave me reviews! They're very precious and always encourage me to write even more for you guys! Thanks!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for such a long hiatus in posting... I kept forgetting to post on here while I was posting on wattpad as well. But now the story is complete, so you can expect the rest of the story very soon! Feedback is always appreciated!

"Hey, sweetie, are you going to start getting read-- Why are you packing your dress up?"

Sadie Dowell had gently pushed through the ajar door to her daughter's room as she spoke only to stop in her tracks and stare. Camry also froze, her pink gown folded at an odd angle because she had been fighting to fit the skirt's layers neatly into a bag.

"Uh... because I thought we were going to Saoirse's house?" Camry answered uncertainly, slowly straightening her back and letting go of the pink satin in her hands. "We were planning on doing our makeup together."

Sadie shook her head at that and quickly marched inside. She pulled the dress out of its confining bag and smoothed out the folds carefully, laying it out on Camry's bed. "Oh, no, no. We're taking care of everything here at the house, Cammie. You'll still see Saoirse at the cotillion."

"Why, though?" Camry insisted on knowing.

"Because you're still not in the clear after skipping etiquette last week," Sadie sighed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "Besides, Anita will be over soon to do your makeup."

"'Nita?" she gasped, her eyes lighting up like the lights of a Christmas tree that had just been plugged in. "Oh, _yes!_ When does she get here?"

Planning this out, rehearsing it, and using cue cards could not have had any better of an effect as hearing the doorbell right then did. "That's probably her!" Camry exclaimed, dashing out of her room and down the stairs at breakneck speed. Sadie reached out and opened her mouth to warn her not to run so quickly, but she held her tongue and dropped her hand to her side. She could just barely hear the front door open and the two women exchange delightfully energetic greetings.

"'Nita! Mom literally _just_ told me you were coming over!" Camry cheered after she wrenched open the door and mirrored Anita's excited squealing.

Anita, an exuberant woman of Filipino heritage and with a seemingly perpetually cheerful disposition, was the primary make up artist working for Sadie. Needless to say, she was a veritable expert in her craft, which made it no surprise that she had found a job with Sadie and her producers for a number of years by then. Growing up visiting the studios and watching takes from the sidelines, Camry had always looked forward to seeing Anita whenever she got to see her mom filming, and vice versa.

"What?" Anita gasped. "She wasn't supposed to tell you at _all!_ Oh, but _look_ at you, Cammie: you're looking more mature every time I see you, I swear!"

Camry fought down a blush that still managed to peak through in a shade of dusty rose. "Aww, psh, 'Nita."

"Really, you do," Anita insisted, taking her by the hand and leading her out of the foyer. "But we need to get started sooner instead of later! This is a big night for you-- I've been hearing all about it from your mom."

In preparation for the inevitable chaos that would mark their long occupation of the bathroom, Sadie had preemptively cleared it of all clutter and cleaned it. She even had gone so far as to install a few extra vanity lights for maximum visibility, though Anita had also come prepared with some of her own. Before she knew it, Camry had been plunked down on a chair in front of enough lights to rival a professional filming studio.

"Okay, let me see the gown," Anita instructed, and Sadie returned a moment later bearing the dress over her arms. "Oh, _very_ pretty," she appraised, nodding and pursing her lips. "You two have good taste. I think we can do something with this."

~

It took over an hour of priming, primping, powdering, and perfecting, but in the end the result was just right. Because she knew what Camry preferred, Anita had made sure to not let the makeup look too heavy, using it to mainly accentuate her best features. A subtle gradient of pink to gold eyeshadow graced her eyelids, and her eyeliner's slight wings were sharp enough to stab a man. Though the foundation and powder did their job well in hiding the blemishes on her skin, they couldn't entirely conceal the triangular scar on her right cheekbone. That was fine, though; after learning exactly how she had gotten it, Camry wore it like a badge of honor above all else.

At one point throughout the innumerable-step process, Sadie had left the room to go take care of something else for a while, leaving Anita and Camry to gossip in secret.

"So, the cotillion isn't _all_ I've been hearing about from your mom," Anita commented, using a fluffy brush to sweep away some of the eyeshadow fallout resting on the younger girl's cheeks. "You rebel. A good cause as always, right?"

"You know it," Camry murmured, holding herself too rigidly to move her mouth more than a little.

"Well, rein it in a little if you can, Cammie. I didn't teach you how to cover up bruises and scrapes to make your mom worry about you this much," Anita reminded her, her hand motions stilling as an air of solemnity settled over the two of them.

"I'm... trying not to," Camry said slowly, her gaze falling to land on a palette of eyeshadow sitting on the counter to her left. "It-- It'll be fine. Tonight will be fun, and then she won't have to worry about me skipping those dumb etiquette lessons anymore."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Anita agreed, perking right back up and grabbing the concealer out of her tote bag.

"Hey, how's Clara? I haven't seen her in a while," Camry inquired just in time before she had to shut her mouth in order to not mess up Anita's handiwork.

"She's fine," Anita answered with a smile. "We're planning a trip to the east coast at the end of July, actually. It'll be our anniversary getaway."

Camry did her best to enthusiastically say "Ooh~!" without parting her lips.

"Yep, it'll be nice to spend some time alone with her. Life has been so _crazy_ with all the ghost stuff going on around here, y'know?"

Now, finished and dressed in her gown, Camry performed a graceful pirouette in the downstairs living room so Sadie and Anita could admire their handiwork. Anita clapped her hands together once and held them together, beaming at the young prodigy. Sadie, though she was undeniably pleased with the outcome, couldn't help but think that something was missing.

"Wait a second-- I'm going to grab a necklace for you," she decided, then took to the stairs. When she returned bearing the glittering jewelry made almost exclusively of teardrop-shaped gems hanging at varying lengths from the central chain, Camry balked at the idea.

"A-Are you _sure_ you want to let me borrow your jewelry, Mom?" she asked quickly, her hands coming together so the fingers could tangle themselves together. "I don't wanna lose them-- or ruin them, either!"

"Oh, stop," Sadie scoffed good-naturedly. "It'll be fine! Just don't start any fights. Not that you'll have time to-- you'll be having too much fun dancing!"

She clipped them into place around her timid daughter's neck and backed up quickly to give her another once-over. "Okay. I think that's it. We did it! You look _great_ , sweetie."

"Thanks, Mom," Camry said bashfully. A touch of mortification weighed down in the pit of her stomach as she felt the heat rising in her cheeks once again. And she hadn't even left the house yet! What was she going to do when she saw Saoirse in _her_ gown?

'I'll probably implode' she figured matter-of-factly.

After a few final little touches here and there, gathering up the necessary tickets and other miscellaneous items into a small white clutch that matched Camry's platform pumps, and multiple pictures to capture the magic before the event, they were off. For being late April, the sky was already starting to darken at seven o' clock, which made for a spectacular view of the sunset throughout the drive. The cotillion was being hosted in a ballroom at the city's university, which was built on the surface rather than a floating acre. That meant that Sadie was able to pull right up to the curb and drop off her daughter properly.

"Ooh, I know you're going to have a great time tonight, sweetie," Sadie gushed as she folded Camry into a warm embrace. "Be sure to try and talk to at least a couple of new people, alright? This event is great for networking."

"I'll... try," Camry said softly, returning the hug and leaning into it. For all the confidence she feigned when talking about how Mrs. Bosch and the cotillion didn't scare her, she knew she would be lying to herself if she tried to say she wasn't anxious.

Mother and daughter stayed that way for a number of seconds, but something must have caught Sadie's eye because she looked up quickly and let go. "Look who's here."

Camry whirled around in a flurry of rustling satin skirts and consciously had to stop herself from literally gaping in awe. The Mahadeo family's car had just pulled in alongside the curb and stopped to let out a bright-eyed hijabi girl swathed in rich indigo fabric and backlit by a Monet painting of a sunset. Saoirse stepped down carefully and surveyed the scene only to pause when she caught sight of Camry, standing and staring like there was no one else in the world but the two of them.

"Oh, good! We caught up to you two," Eleanor commented cheerfully, hopping out of the driver's seat and joining the group on the sidewalk. "I was hoping to get some pictures of the girls together. You're both so beautiful!"

"Th-Thanks," Camry stammered out numbly. She had yet to look away from her girlfriend even as they had walked toward each other. "Saoirse, I-- you really were right to keep your dress a surprise. You look _incredible!_ "

Saoirse giggled at that and loosely grabbed a handful of her floor-length skirt's soft-looking fabric. "You, too. But this isn't the only surprise I have planned for tonight." The mischievous tilt of her smile somehow both stopped and restarted Camry's heart at the same time.

"Seriously?" she eagerly gasped. "Like what?"

"I can't just _tell_ you," Saoirse snickered. "Don't worry, you're going to love it."

"C'mon, girls, we need pictures of the two of you together before we leave," Sadie interjected, her cell phone in hand and at the ready; Eleanor had mimicked her for the same reasons. The two girls looped their arms around one another and beamed at their mothers, who made sure to get multiple shots of each. "Beautiful!"

"Have fun, you two," Eleanor said. "Watch each other's backs." This she added in a lower volume so as to not be overheard by Sadie as she climbed into her car.

"I've got everything on me," Saoirse assured her as she hugged her mother goodbye. Camry also partook in an embrace from her 'second mother' and waved as the two women drove off. Then, arm in arm like a couple going to prom, they started on their way up to the front steps.

"What did you mean by 'everything on' you?" Camry whispered conspiratorially over the sounds of their heels clacking on the pavement.

"It's just in case we're stuck somehow and you can't transform," Saoirse answered just as quietly. Their tickets were approved at the door and they were promptly whisked inside by one of many ushers that had been hired to help manage the classy event. The pair stepped through the open double doors and into a huge ballroom with vaulted ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, and skylights that did well to reflect the glow from the fairy lights strung everywhere. An incredibly long table took up the middle of the room, and smaller tables stacked with piping hot food and freshly washed plates hugged its perimeter.

"Wow, they're really gonna serve us food like we're royalty or something," Camry commented under her breath. Whether Saoirse heard or not was swept under the rug when they spotted a cluster of their fellow etiquette classmates and hurried over to chat. Dinner wasn't going to be served for another fifteen or so minutes, after all.

"Hey, I was wondering when you two would arrive," Jordy, the same girl for whose sake Camry had distracted Mrs. Bosch on day one, said as she walked up to the pair. "I figured you would come in together, too. You're never apart!"

"Well, it's not like we really know anyone else here," Saoirse said easily.

"Besides you, of course," Camry chimed in.

"Uh-huh," Jordy agreed slowly, eyeing the two carefully for all of half a second. "Oh, hey! I heard that there was going to be a special guest singing later tonight! Do you have any idea who it is?"

Camry shook her head, her iolite eyes wide with wonder. "Really? I didn't hear anything like that! A live performance would be so cool."

"I wonder what they'll sing..." Saoirse contemplated.

As for the rest of the room, its ambience was mellow with blooming anticipation for the night's events. A cluster of boys dressed smartly in suits was crowded by a door at the far end of the ballroom, and while one or two girls had gone over there to chat, the majority of them remained closer to the main doors. With her far-sighted vision, Camry eyed them curiously.

She was so preoccupied with assessing the others that she barely heard the pair of notoriously military-like heel clicks until they were right behind her. A heavy hand fell on her shoulder, startling her into spinning with her knees bent, ready for action. Mrs. Bosch sighed at her student's skittish nature and shook her head. For the cotillion, she had let her bun down into loose waves that fell behind her shoulders, though her choice of attire was somewhat bland in comparison to the other ladies'. "A word with you in the hall, Miss Camry?"

Camry shot a quick look at Saoirse, whose nervousness was well hidden, before returning her gaze to Mrs. Bosch and nodding silently. The teacher gave her a sharp lift of her eyebrow in response to that, and Camry bit back a fed-up sigh of her own. "Yes, Mrs. Bosch."

"Wonderful." It didn't sound 'wonderful.' The two of them exited through the double doors and turned down a corridor, the lights of which were only lit in every other bulb and seemed to throw more shadows than necessary on the walls.

'Oh, great. The perfect place for a ghost attack. Or a murder. I shouldn't have watched _Perfect Blue_ so late last night...!'

"What did you want to talk to me about, Mrs. Bosch?" Camry asked after a moment's hesitation, during which she debated if it was a good idea to start the conversation she knew she would not enjoy.

"I just wanted to congratulate you on how well you've shaped up in these last couple of days," Mrs. Bosch said. She turned briskly and faced her pupil while holding her arms behind her back as she always did. "You really have managed to hone a decent facade for yourself. I know that it can be tough, but I have noticed an improvement since the first day."

Had she gone mute? Camry couldn't find her tongue, let alone the right words to form a sentence with! "U-Uh-- th-thank you, Mrs. Bosch?"

"Now, with that being said," the older woman continued, growing even more serious as evidenced by the stern lines of her face, "I do not want to see _any_ kind of a relapse tonight. There are many _very_ important people here, and any kind of outburst could land you and your friends in _serious_ social trouble. All _has_ to go well tonight. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mrs. Bosch, I do," Camry answered with forced sincerity. "But, why do you think I would be the cause of that? I'm not _looking_ for trouble."

'It just has a way of finding me.'

"Your track record says otherwise," Mrs. Bosch answered dully. "Alright, I've said my piece. Go back to your friends-- and keep yourself warmed up for the couples waltz. Don't insist on taking the lead with whichever boy you end up dancing with."

She had been on her way to leave when that last comment stopped her in her tracks. Before she could think twice about what she was doing, Camry turned back and blurted out, "What if I don't _want_ to dance with a boy?"

For a tense few seconds, neither one of them moved, and Mrs. Bosch regarded her pupil coldly. Then, to Camry's surprise, a small smirk peeked out through her unyielding expression. "Well, dancing _is_ part of the event, but if you would prefer not to then that is your choice."

On that note, Mrs. Bosch breezed past her confused student and returned to the ballroom. The need to correct her, to make her point clearer, died on the tip of Camry's tongue, and with a murky funk hanging over her thoughts, she followed suit. If it hadn't been for Saoirse placing a concerned hand on Camry's bare upper arm, she might have remained that way for the rest of the evening.

~

As the dreaded cotillion progressed, the tension slowly ebbed away and the attendees found themselves slowly melting into the roles of the night. The food was exquisite in each of the three courses, all of which were offered in options suited to dietary or religious restrictions, and new friends were made of seating assignment neighbors. Even as her heart sank with the realization that Saoirse was seated halfway down the impressively long table, Camry smiled when Jordy plunked herself down in the seat to her left. The atmosphere as they ate and got to know one another was remarkably pleasant for all the hype preceding it; many suspected the fairy lights and non-abrasive music playing softly in the background had something to do with it.

When dinner was over and the tables and chairs were all taken away by the wait staff, a standard waltz tempo started up and drew a few handfuls of teenagers out onto the newly designated dance floor. Camry and Saoirse were not among them, though; Saoirse had disappeared suddenly through a side door as soon as she had finished her third course of sherbet with fresh fruit and whipped cream. Without a dance partner or anyone she especially felt like socializing with, Camry remained against a side wall and absentmindedly played with the hem of her dress.

"Hey, Camry," Jordy spoke up as she sidled up to the lonely teenager and leaned against the wall as well. "You look bored."

"No, just... my energy's starting to dwindle," she admitted slowly, not looking up from where both of her hands clung to the highest point of her dress' skirt. She didn't worry about flashing anyone by accident; the spandex shorts underneath were reassurance that nothing of the sort would happen. "I'm not really built for socializing."

"I can weirdly relate," Jordy commented with a gesture of her hand. "I dunno if I told you already, but you look really pretty in your dress."

"Thank you," Camry giggled, that warm blush returning to her cheek bones. "So do you. Did you get new glasses?"

"Yep!" she boasted, wiggling them a little bit on her face. "It was mostly a coincidence that they match my dress, I promise. I've got a question for you, though... and it might be a little hard to ask since I'm worried it might be taken the wrong way."

_That_ piqued her interest. Camry looked up and at Jordy specifically, giving her an easygoing expression that invited her to continue. "It's okay, you can ask me whatever."

Jordy pulled her lips into her mouth and shifted side to side for all of two seconds before, "AreyounSaoirsedating?"

"Uh... maybe say that again, and a little slower?" Cam suggested, a mirthful but confused lift to her brow.

"I asked if you and Saoirse are, y'know, a couple," Jordy reiterated quietly. "Sorry if that sounds weird-- it's just that I always see you two together, and you do kinda act like a couple from time to time, so I guess I just thought... Y'know."

She couldn't help the swift exhale of air through her nose that constituted her restrained laughter. "Yeah, Jordy, we are, and it's okay to ask. I know _I_ don't mind. We try to be low-key about it since our parents don't know-- except for her mom, who figured it out a _long_ time ago, _apparently_. But we grew up together, realized our mutual feelings a while ago, and that was kind of the end of it." A pleasantly dazed look settled over her features, drawing the tension out of her muscles and pulling her tone into a lower register. "I mean, it's not the _end_ of it, of course. We'll always be there for each other."

"Wow, you really _are_ in love," Jordy said with awe. "I hope I meet someone who makes me feel that way. You're lucky that it's your best friend."

"I bet your best friend will be the right one, one day," Cam said. "Whether the best friend part comes first or second, it'll happen."

"Ahem-- test, test. Oh, good, it's perfect! Hi, everybody!"

At the sound of Saoirse's voice coming through the filter of a loud and expensive speaker system, Camry all but jumped off the wall and tried to peer over the crowd for the cause. Even with her platformed heels, she was still too short to see much of anything! Upon that realization, she kept close to the wall and slid her way down the room to the area where a small stage had been set up. In addition to the live performance by the mystery guest, an actual small concert band was going to be playing all of the dance music for the evening.

Saoirse stood on said stage, looking too ethereal and graceful to belong to _any_ of the dimensions Camry had visited. The shiny black microphone in its stand was right at her lips. "I'm sure you're all wondering what I'm doing up here. Well, Mrs. Bosch and I got together and she graciously allowed me to give you guys a little bit of a performance tonight! Plus, I run a WeTube channel called HijabiHilighters, and we're filming this right now and going to put it up. That means that if you want to, you can be on my channel!

"Okay, so-- Are the cameras rolling? They are? Good-- I'm gonna dedicate this song to my girlfriend, Camry. I hope you're all in the mood for a little dancing. Miestro, if you please."

The first few bars of the song went entirely unheard by Camry, whose hands were clapped to her burning cheeks. What happened to being low-key about their relationship? This was going up on her WeTube channel-- the channel with nearly two _million_ subscribers!

'Is she saying she's done keeping it a secret?' Camry wondered. 'Oh my gosh, this is so amazing, but I'm so conflicted and-- wait, is this Caravan Palace?'

Those slow drum beats, the gentle clarinet laying out a rhythmic and borderline sultry melody, and the long wait before any lyrics came through all painted a very familiar picture. The minute of just music warmed up the crowd into smooth swaying and relaxed twirling as partners paired off to dance. By the time Saoirse was back to the microphone, she looked directly at Camry and gave her a mischievous wink that only served to deepen the fire consuming her fair skin.

_Deep, so deep red on your cheeks_   
_When you turn your gaze on me_   
_Misty little lights_   
_Those sparkling little lights_   
_Will make your eyes so shadowy_

She had always known that Saoirse had an amazing singing voice. Heck, a lot of the following she had garnered online had stemmed from her incredible covers of popular songs. But this was something else, something incredibly new and passionate that struck Camry all the way through her ghostly core. Before she consciously realized it, her hips were swaying side to side in a way that physically mirrored the way Saoirse was singing.

_Uncertainty and revelry_   
_At what you wished you've done_   
_And what you really did_   
_Mmhmm_   
_Once your family's gone_

_Death has ripped my willing flesh_   
_Of the night_   
_Alright for you_   
_A magic flight and the wildest ride_   
_Ended with the night_

She was now at the front of the crowd and could see the camera recording and being operated by one of the staff members. With it on its tripod, he swiveled it to capture some of the crowd as they performed the dance steps they had been practicing for the last week and a half. Another long break between lyrics left the singer with a little bit of time to just smile lovingly at her girlfriend as she danced in front of the stage languidly, her motions as fluid yet sleepy as the music.

_Death has ripped my willing flesh_   
_Of the night_   
_Alright for you_   
_A magic flight and the wildest ride_   
_Ended with the night_

Then, like all songs, it came to an end, although this particular one trailed off into strange and seemingly disconnected sounds like birds tweeting, among others. It technically wasn't entirely over when Camry all but vaulted onstage and threw her arms around Saoirse, who returned the embrace wholeheartedly. A smattering of applause rose up from the crowd and gained traction until Saoirse waved to everyone gratefully.

"Wow, that was fun. Thanks for letting me sing, everyone! I hope you enjoyed it. The concert band is going to set up now, so we've got more dancing to look forward to!" Hand-in-hand, the power couple walked off stage and approached the cameraman. He ended the recording and handed it all to Saoirse, who thanked him before turning to Camry. "So, what'd you think? Did you like the surprise?"

"I-- I loved it more than words can describe!" Camry gushed, still flushed from the rush of it all. "I'm _still_ stunned. You were planning on announcing 'us' to WeTube?"

"I thought it was about time," Saoirse said, looking pleasantly winded and exhilirated. "I won't upload it if you're not comfortable with the idea of 'us' being out to the Internet, though."

"No, no, no!" Camry exclaimed as she put a hand on top of the digital camera. "I _so_ want this. It's perfect for us! I just thought you were still hesitant about it."

"I've had enough of being hesitant," she stated confidently. "Besides, this is gonna blow their _minds!_ "

Everything was shaping up to be the perfect night until that moment. With love overflowing in their hearts, they had risen higher and higher on cloud nine, especially when the band began their first set and the two got to dance together.

The higher they rose just meant they had that much farther to fall when everything came down around them. This time, it came in the form of a seemingly innocent hiccup that carried the stench of fire and ash with it.

A complete 180-degree turn in the mood lit up in their eyes, which met even before the smoke had dissipated in the air between their close bodies. "Oh, no," Saoirse whispered so softly that only Camry could hear.

"Not _now_ ," Camry groaned, her shoulders slouching and her head lolling back.

The end of Saoirse's indigo hijab followed in sharp motions as she turned her head from side to side quickly, searching for an escape route. "C'mon, through that side door." She indicated it with a nod. Together, they scurried around other young couples, weaving and ducking down a makeshift path through the crowds.

Camry's hand was on the doorknob when those staccato heel clacks approached like a boss monster triggered by an avatar's arrival. "And just _where_ do you ladies think you're going?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna leave it there before this chapter reaches 5000 words *wipes sweat away* Phew! It's all finally starting to come together! 
> 
> Be sure to comment, alright? They really are the best way to tell me to keep up the hard work.
> 
> See you in the next chapter!


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RECAP:
> 
> "And just _where_ do you ladies think you're going?"

"The bathroom, Mrs. Bosch." Saoirse, much like how her mother had flawlessly gotten the two of them out of trouble after etiquette class, answered in as calm a demeanor as possible. "The drinks we had during dinner just went  _right_ through us." 

"And Saoirse thought we should touch up our makeup while we were at it," Camry chimed in, struggling internally to stay collected. How in the world did Mrs. Bosch have such an eagle-like eye to spot them leaving? 

"The bathrooms aren't through that door," Mrs. Bosch told the two of them before pointing out the main ext across the ballroom. "But the couples waltz is about to start, so it's not a good idea to leave now. They're going to announce it at any second." 

"We--!" Camry tried to object, but the panicked mental state of "Gotta find a place to hide  _now!_ " kept her from coming up with a plausible excuse. 

Thankfully, Saoirse was there to rationalize. "What if we don't fix our makeup and just come  _right_ back?" she bargained while visibly squirming for good measure. "We'll be fast, I promise."

Mrs. Bosch's lips pinched together in a tight line and her brow furrowed in suspicion. Leaning down to be a bit more eye-to-eye with the blonde, she enunciated very clearly, "This had better be a lot  _faster_ than our first day.  _Understand_ , Miss Camry?" 

Camry nodded quickly, her iolite eyes round like the full fourth moon in the sky right at that moment. "Absolutely, ma'am!" 

She leaned back into a ramrod-straight standing position and lowered her chin in a curt nod. "Alright, hurry back."

"We will, ma'am!" Saoirse assured her, taking Camry by the shoulders and steering her toward the double doors. Their heels clacked noisily on the hardwood floors, but as soon as they were out in the hallway with the sounds of the cotillion cut off, their steps echoed ominously in all directions. 

"Yikes," Camry murmured, wiping imaginary sweat from her brow. "But how are we going to 'be right back' if I have to go fight a  _ghost?_ "

"Just be fast," Saoirse advised her, keeping a warm hand on Camry's shoulder, "and be ready to change back A.S.A.P. Keep an eye on the party if you can."

 

She looked up into Saoirse's eyes at that moment and felt a firm but gentle tug on her heartstrings. Determination filled her to the brim, and with a smile that was more confident than she actually felt, Camry nodded once. "Okay, got it."

"You got this." When Saoirse planted a kiss on her girlfriend's forehead for good luck, her lipstick didn't leave any marks behind as a result of her makeup wizardry. "Go tell it to take a hike, boo."

The pet name pulled a delighted gasp out from between Camry's lips. "Oh my gosh,  _boo!_  Oh, that's too perfect. Okay, okay, I'm going. But yes, boo—holy crap, I love it. I love you!"

"I love you, too," Saoirse said with a wave to her as she retreated into the shadows down the corridor.

Camry disappeared around a corner then, and a flash of white light marked her shift from semi-ordinary teenaged girl to a ghost-fighting superheroine. When it was clear that she was gone, Saoirse looked up and down the hallway for the restroom sign. That story about the drinks at dinner had never actually been a lie.

~

Camry's POV~

The cold night air was a shock to my bare arms as I dashed through a door labeled with the telltale red EXIT sign and found myself in an unpaved alley next to the event center. I stopped and waited, silently listening for any sort of indication that I wasn't alone. A late April breeze wafted between the buildings and tickled the hairs on the back of my neck, but that was all.

What in the world had set my ghost sense off? I couldn't have imagined it—Saoirse  _definitely_  saw the smoke, too. I jumped onto a tile hovering some three feet off of the ground and took off out of the alley, taking my stepping stones higher and higher in order to get a bird's eye view of the area. The skylights above the cotillion, illuminated and full of innocently dancing people, were directly beneath me when I stopped running and started scanning.

No, not anywhere around that building... Not that one, either... Not above me, not below... The music coming from inside is nice, though.

"Maybe a ghost was just... passing through," I murmured to myself, a gloved hand on my chin and my lips set in a pensive frown. 'Wouldn't that be nice. Finally, a night where I can actually  _enjoy_  a party. Maybe this one won't be quite like last time.'

"'Last time,' as in the night with the broken rosebushes?"

The breath in my lungs stopped and I felt my resolve on my tiles start to shift. Where the hell had that voice come from? It had a familiar accent, no less. British? No, not quite.

"Where are you?" I yelled, my gaze sweeping side to side as I pivoted, crouched low and ready for anything. "Show yourself!"

I waited, tense, for a number of seconds that felt like minutes, in total silence. My mind raced, my volcanic core beat heavily in my chest, and I could feel sweat gathering under the fabric of my gloves as my hands were clenched into tight fists.

"Get her."

"Huh?" I said. A flash of purple— _hair?_ — whipped across my vision before a solid kick planted itself in my side and sent me flying off of my tiles. Another set appeared to catch me, but before I could gather my bearings from that first blow, a second one caught me across the upper back and I went rolling. With no tiles under me, I dropped to the roof of the event center, where the gravel and concrete did a good job of knocking the wind out of me. I struggled up to my knees, all the while gasping for breath, and looked back over my shoulder.

Hovering just a few feet away, Shasta stared blankly at me, her face shadowed with the bright moonslight behind her. A white rope twisted around her, from the crown of her head to the tip of her wispy ghost tail, and small daffodils peeked out in different places along its shiny length. The way her purple eyes glowed beneath half-closed lids sent a spike of unease right through me.

"Shasta?" I coughed out. Before I could say any more, she rushed at me, and I barely had enough time to flip around onto my back and get my limbs up. I caught her wrists as she bore down on top of me, and with both legs up and crossed to prevent her from coming inside of my defenses, she wrestled to break down my guard. Both hands were open, palms aimed directly at my face, and with a gasp I ducked and shut my eyes.

Twin shots of ectoplasmic energy decimated the concrete millimeters from my head and filled my ears with an incessant ringing. " _Agh_ —Get  _off_  me!" My right hand let go of her arm, and even though it let her get ahold of my neck, I reached up and snagged her ponytail in a vise-like grip. A sharp yank turned her head to the side, but a hot sting loosened my hold as my concentration was shot to hell.

Just like in self-defense training; hook the leg, sweep, get her off balance, and shrimp away. I threw in a sturdy kick to the gut for good measure and jumped to my feet, both hands out in front of me as I'd been taught for years. "Shasta, what the hell is going on?"

'And what  _stung_  me like that?' I had to wonder as I spared a glance from Shasta rising and caught a glimpse of my glove. A hole had been eaten right through the fabric, and it was smoking with some kind of red fumes that made my head spin! 'Wait--!'

She rushed at me again, a ball of ghostly green energy charging in each curled hand. I leaped to the left and took off on a path of tiles, hoping she would follow me  _away_  from the very shatter-able glass suspended right above a few dozen unaware civilians. "Shasta, why are you attacking me?" I yelled over my shoulder. Now that I had a good chance to look at her, those weird flowers were emitting the same red, wispy aura as the one that had fizzled out on my glove. Did I touch one of those flowers when I grabbed her hair?

Now a good few dozen yards away from the building, I came to a stop and squared up, fiery energy of my own bubbling to life in my palms. Shasta still flew at me, and with a start I watched her throw one glowing attack after another. I skittered like a mouse to dodge them all, moving backwards all the while, but the second to last struck my shoulder and threw off my rhythm. Its successor caught me smack dab in the center of my chest, and I swear I must have blacked out for a split second because I do  _not_  remember hitting the ground. I do, however, very clearly remember what happened after she alighted next to me and planted a heel on my throat.

Omniscient POV~

Meanwhile, Saoirse cracked a door to the ballroom open and peered around cautiously, hoping that the satiny shimmer of her outfit wouldn't reveal her even in the shadows. There, Mrs. Bosch was talking to a man in an expensive-looking suit; the coast was clear. She scurried inside on muffled heels and stuck close to the edge of the room until she was near the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over a courtyard. A quick glance up through the skylights offered a view of a flash of white aura and purple, but it was gone in an instant.

'Oh, jeez. Camry, please be careful...!'

"Excuse me, miss. Do you need a partner?"

She spun at the sound of a masculine voice addressing her and was mildly surprised to see an unfamiliar boy who was roughly an inch taller than she was despite her low heels. His light brown hair was slicked back with gel, and his smile could probably win awards in the right circles. Saoirse's pink tourmaline eyes rapidly flicked back and forth between his face and the hand he extended to her as an invitation.

"Oh, well..." she hummed indecisively. "I—I suppose, but can we stay near the windows?"

"Sure," he answered. "My name's Andy. What's yours?"

"Saoirse," she replied, accepting the offer and falling into step with a hand on his shoulder and his on her waist. Twirling to the live band's lilting tune, she and Andy stepped in sync in the typical waltz pattern.

"So, what do your parents do?" Andy inquired conversationally, then mirthfully repeated the question when Saoirse tore her gaze from the bay of windows and blinked at him multiple times.  

"Oh, my dad works here for the university," Saoirse explained politely. "My mum owns a local business that designs clothes and accessories. What about your parents?"

Andy definitely replied and explained his parents' rich professions in great detail, but Saoirse only heard roughly fifteen percent of it and didn't care about even that much. Her mind was elsewhere, as was her gaze, and she couldn't help but worry at how quiet it was outside. Usually, a fight with Shasta was big and flashy with lots of explosions and loud noises. All around her, the music swelled with a crescendo and drifted into a tapering end, which was met with applause from all of the young dancers. Andy lifted an eyebrow at his temporary partner and asked, "What's got  _you_  so distracted?"

Saoirse shook her head minutely and set her lips in a thin line. "Sorry, I just—never mind. I need to—"

She didn't get to say much more as a subdued but unmistakable laser-like firing sound echoed down through the room and pulled silence from the throngs of teens and adults alike. A few seconds later, more and more sounded from slightly farther off, each blast accompanied this time by a visible burst of green light through the windows. Two shapes with glowing white auras were battling under the moonslight, taking the fight away from the event center and across the barren courtyard.

"Everyone, get away from the windows!" Mrs. Bosch shouted unnecessarily; the silence in the ballroom was deafening to an uncomfortable degree. By breaking it, though, her voice parted the veil of feigned tranquility and sent the teens into an uproar of nervous chatter and uncoordinated flocking. "Follow the adults out of the ballroom and into the lobby—stay calm and  _don't push!_ "

"Come on," Andy said urgently, his grip on Saoirse's hand tightening as he tried to lead her after the others.

To his surprise, she twisted her wrist in a circle and forced him to let go. "Go ahead, and I'll be there in a sec."

"What?" he said, confusion apparent across his handsome features. "Why're you--?"

"Don't ask questions, just  _go_ ," she insisted, her right hand already wandering down to a hidden pocket in her long skirt. The warm edges of her phone case met her fingers like an old friend, but before she could pull it out Andy had a hand on her elbow and was pulling her after the crowd. "Andy! Let go!"

"We have to leave!" he said, shaking his head as he tried jogging to catch up. She dug her heels in and tried to pry his hand off, but his conviction for doing the "right" and "gentlemanly" thing wasn't budging. " _Stop_  it—aren't you afraid of the  _ghosts?_ "

"Quit dawdling and hurry up!" Mrs. Bosch barked at the pair from the double doors. Most of the other kids had already gone through by then, but Andy and Saoirse were still halfway across the empty room. "Both of you!  _Now!_ "

" _Rrrgh!_ " Saoirse growled, and with one fierce, final tug she wrenched herself free and took off for the side door she and Camry had tried to sneak out through earlier. The door banged noisily against the wall when she threw it open and dashed through, knowing full well that Mrs. Bosch was going to chase after her and try to drag her back. 'Jeez, I'm  _never_  going to hear the end of this!'

The room she found herself in was some sort of makeshift kitchen where prepared food could wait to be brought out without getting cold. Remnants from the cotillion dinner were piled up on the countertops and in the garbage cans. A bright red EXIT sign glowed across the room, offering a shining option for escape. She dashed around an island counter, accidentally smacking her elbow against a pile of china plates that came crashing to the floor in a cacophony of jarring sound and flying shards. Mrs. Bosch was at the door but shrank back at the sudden eruption of fine dining ware. She hesitated to continue, which cost her the chance to catch the runaway girl before she got to the exit door. Saoirse slammed into its bar handle and pushed her way to freedom, where a whiff of brisk night air met her flushed cheeks in tandem with the door's alarm going off.

Desperately fighting for air and beating a fist against Shasta's ankle, Relle struggled in vain to move the foot planted firmly on her trachea. Her eyes drifted upwards, following the curving line of Shasta's leg and torso to meet her glowing violet eyes, still half-closed as if in a trance. "Sha—st-a-a--!" Relle choked out, latching a flaming hand around the lower leg of her attacker. Shasta didn't even flinch, much less recognize it as a threat, and Relle found her hand repelled instantly by the flowery rope that twisted its way down to Shasta's calf.

That same hand flew as far as it could from the force and smacked into the grass, which she clung to in search of some sort of leverage. As Shasta stared on, disembodied and disinterested, Relle felt horror begin to boil to life deep inside. This wasn't right at all!

" _Please_...!" she wheezed, the tears prickling in her eyes evaporating into the air between them. Though she didn't convey any sort of emotion, Shasta leaned forward just a bit more and pressed harder, digging her heel down as far as she could. Relle's eyes bulged and she clenched her extended hand into a fist, mentally pushing the last ounces of concentration into it as she felt the edges of her vision blurring, going darker than the navy-blue sky she could see beyond that purple ponytail.

All of a sudden, though Relle heard it as if underwater and down a long tunnel, a shrill, reverberating scream pierced the air and made Shasta jump. She turned her head to the side, her amazingly long ponytail whipping to the side with the sharp motion, which was exactly when Relle struck. Keeping one hand on Shasta's shoe, she brought her other hand in close with a mighty  _swish_  and plunged the rudimentary dagger, if it could even be called that, of quickly-cooled lava rock directly into the space between a would-be Achilles' tendon and bone. Shasta wobbled above her as if, even in her numbed state, the pain had somehow elicited some sort of actual reaction, and Relle threw a bright green blast of ecto-energy right into her chin. Shasta's head blew back and she stumbled backwards a few feet before collapsing, her right foot useless to stand on.

Relle rolled onto one side and loosely clutched her ruined throat, coughing painfully all the while and blinking back tears. She propped herself up on an elbow and, eyes wide and fearful, shot a look at Shasta. She wasn't moving a muscle, but those flowers still emitted that awful aura; Relle could still smell it on her own clothes, and it made her head spin crazily. Now that things had quietened for at least a few seconds, she was able to make out that strange rope with a bit more ease. Its material was shiny under the moonslight, and each yellow daffodil's black stem and leaf had grown out of a complicated-looking knot. It wrapped around her body and limbs carefully, almost methodically, with a stretch going across her forehead, around her neck, around her left arm, then down her torso and right leg. Even as her lungs screamed and her neck throbbed, Camry couldn't help but feel her breath catch in her throat as she took in the confusing and awful sight.

"What...  _is_  that?"

"Want one of your own?"

Saoirse rushed at top speed down the side of the building, turning left as soon as she was outside and not stopping until she could clearly see the courtyard and the two ghosts lying on the ground in it. Her phone in hand, she slowed her breathing and stuck to the shadows, hoping her dark-hued dress would help her blend in without being noticed. With her phone's camera aimed at the scene and recording, she settled in to capture what would happen next. "C'mon, Relle... Get  _up_...!"

This was often her role in ghost fights: documentation and standing by as a last resort. Camry had always hated the idea of getting Saoirse and Dude involved in her dangerous skirmishes, but when they both insisted on being there to pull her out when she got in over her head, they had agreed on a standard job for each. Dude usually kept a keen eye out for bystanders that he could lead out of the danger zone, and Saoirse always used her social media platform to help boost public opinion of Relle Phantom's 'antics.'

"Wait. Who's that?" Saoirse whispered, a note of fear making her whisper sound reedier than she intended.

"Want one of your own?"

Relle would have gasped if her lungs had the oxygen for it. As it was, she craned her head back and could only stare at the figure standing over her. Their long, black robes swept the blades of dewy grass, and their hood completely covered any signs that could have given away their identity. Their voice, however, was definitely the same as the one that had spoken from nowhere on the rooftop.

"Maybe you  _are_  cursed to never enjoy a party," he chuckled, kneeling down to take her exhausted chin in one gloved hand. "Though, you'll be missing those broken rosebushes by the time this night is over."

"Wha--?" Relle coughed out, bringing one knee up underneath her to try and rise to her feet. "Who  _are_  you?"

"What are you doing  _lying around?_  Get up!" he suddenly barked at the prone Shasta, who mutely floated into an upright position. With her two legs now converged into a wispy tail, the wimpy excuse of a dagger fell through her and thudded onto the ground. "We have to go."

"You're— _controlling_  her?" Camry realized in sync with that terror filling her soul again. She knew this sickening feeling in the air now; a witch! "What are you doing?"

The cloaked figure turned back to her, and even though she couldn't see it at all, Camry's intuition told her he was grinning in there. "You'll wish you'd never found out."

She shrank back, trying to break the contact with him, but his grip squeezed her jaw and forced her head back. "Ah—stop!"

Then that all-too familiar pressure inside of her skull exploded back to life, seeping into all the cracks and crevices of her mind and soaking her consciousness with static. Maybe she screamed, and maybe she blacked out too soon to scream. Either way, her eyes rolled back in her head almost instantly and she slumped to the ground, dead weight in the witch's hands. He stepped back, and at the command of a hand wave Shasta scooped up her half-dead enemy bridal style.

Saoirse stared, wide-eyed and all too confused, for a split second too long. She gathered strength in her legs to make a run for the shadowy newcomer in a reckless bid to stop them, but a downright pissed voice cut her off the moment she began to rise out of her crouch. "Miss Saoirse, get back inside  _this instant!_ "

Mrs. Bosch could  _easily_  be heard all the way across the courtyard, and it was at the sound of her yelling that the three figures vanished as if they had never even existed in the first place. Saoirse lurched forward, her phone slipping from her grasp and clattering to the grass beneath her, but Mrs. Bosch's restraining hand on her shoulder kept her in place. "You are in  _so much trouble_ , young lady! What in the world do you think you're  _doing?_ "

"She's in trouble!" Saoirse blurted without tearing her eyes away from where they had  _just_  been. "Camr— _Relle_ , she--!"

"Never mind that!" Mrs. Bosch insisted. "Get back inside, where it's safe!"

" _No!_ " she refused, tugging herself free of Mrs. Bosch's manicured grasp and scooping her phone back up in one smooth motion. "I have to  _help_  her!"

"Saoirse, get  _back_  here!"

But she was already running, running as fast and as far as her feet would carry her. Her phone was at her ear, ignoring the shouts from the authority behind her in favor of listening to the beeps of a call waiting to be accepted. "C'mon, Dude, pick  _up!_ " she pleaded.

Because the university was near the center of the city, Saoirse found herself running along a street with a few cars driving by here and there. It was then that she heard that blessed click of an answer and barely let Dude get a word in edgewise before shouting, " _Dude!_ " at the top of her lungs.

"S-Seersh, what's up? You sound really out of—"

"Dude, listen to me," she said, definitely louder than necessary. "I need you. Right now. I-I don't know what  _happened_ , but she—and I—she was fighting, but it was  _weird_  and there was this  _dark figure_ who—where are you?  _Please_ , just tell me you can meet me somewhere!"

"I—Okay, I'll meet you wherever. I'm at home; just hang on. Slow down and tell me what's going on, okay?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment down below and give this chapter kudos while you're at it! I always appreciate every last bit of support you guys can give this story, and as always they let me know that it's not a lost cause!
> 
> See you in the next chapter, everyone!


	18. Tricks of the Trade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song "Silent Running" by Hidden Citizens is the perfect song to listen to while you're reading this chapter

Dude, predicting an uneventful evening of following Kordelle's instructions of staying indoors, had been watching a subtitled movie with Ariadna in their cramped living room when a distant jingle drifted down the hall and reached his ears. He rose to his feet and padded down to his and Ari's room, where his phone sang and vibrated insistently on his bedside table. Scooping it up, he glanced at the caller ID curiously before accepting it and putting it up to his ear.

" _Dude!_ " Saoirse shouted through the mic. The fear, desperation, and panic in her tone was enough to make Dude's heartbeat pause in his chest. It was so much more characteristic to hear such emotions in Camry's voice, not Saoirse's; something was  _definitely_ wrong.

"S-Seersh, what's up? You sound really out of—" he started to stammer out, already feeling the blood in his veins pumping faster. Was it 'go' time? Did they need to get to a fight?

"Dude, listen to me," she said, definitely louder than necessary. "I need you. Right now. I-I don't know what  _happened_ , but she—and I—she was fighting, but it was  _weird_  and there was this  _dark figure_ who—where are you?  _Please_ , just tell me you can meet me somewhere!" 

Was she... on the verge of  _tears?_  Oh, no. Suffice to say that he had  _never_ , not even  _once_ , heard Saoirse sound like this, save for when Camry had first gone missing and was presumed dead last July. "I—Okay, I'll meet you wherever. I'm at home; just hang on. Slow down and tell me what's going on, okay?" He punched the speaker option on his phone's screen and set it down next to him on the bed. It left his hands free to start pulling his shoes and socks on.

"Oh-- Okay, okay," Saoirse panted, and with how it sounded like her faint footsteps slowed down, she must have stopped running quite so fast in order to talk clearly. "I just-- I was filming from a distance, you know? We were at the cotillion-- I am in so much trouble,  _oh no_ \-- and Shasta showed up. Something about it felt so  _off_ , though, like-- it wasn't a normal fight! It was too quiet, too-- too--! I don't know! But then someone really tall and wearing a black cloak appeared and I think they kidnapped Camry!"

The half-formed knot in between Dude's fingers fell apart as he started, then slammed a hand down on either side of the phone and leaned over it. "What do you mean, ' _kidnapped?_ '"

"Exactly that:  _kidnapped!_ " Saoirse repeated. "They showed up, Shasta ganged up on Camry with whoever they were, and-- a-and I heard her scream  _so loud_ , Dude, it-- it was...  _horrible_. Then they disappeared and I had to escape from the adults at the cotillion. I'm sure they're going to come after me-- are you on your way? Where should we meet?"

"Hang on, I'm heading out the door in just a sec. Let's meet at the L-Tram station near-- wait, where are you right now?" he asked, throwing on a blue and white jacket while talking at the phone on his bed.

"I-I dunno, hang on; Lavender Street is just up ahead, and I can see the stadium from here. Uhh-- oh, I think I know how to get to the Mediterranean place from here!"

"Okay, I'll meet you there," Dude promised. He scribbled a hasty note of explanation and left it next to Ari, then signed that he was going out and didn't know when he would be back. She quickly asked what was going on, but he told her there was no time and dashed down the hallway to the front door. Under his hand, he turned the knob to wrench it open and stumbled back when his hand slipped off the dull metal handle. "Huh?"

"Dude? What's wrong?" Saoirse's voice asked faintly from his pocket. Neither had ended the call yet, but his short little yell of surprise must have carried through the fabric of his jacket.

He pulled it out and held it up to be heard more clearly. "Nothing, the door's locked and I wasn't-- huh?" Frowning, he turned the lock handle and heard it slide into place. It hadn't been locked when he tried it first, so what gives? "Dammit, the frame must have shifted again. Hold on."

The cell went back in his jacket and he unlocked the door, wiggling the knob experimentally and pushing on different spots to find where it was stuck. Nothing seemed out of place, and even when he stepped back to try and look for where the frame must have fallen out of place, there was no spot where it pinned down the door itself. "Wait, what?"

He tried the knob again and got the same result: as soon as he tried to turn it, his hand slipped off like his fingers were coated in oil. "Ah--! What  _gives?_ " Dude suppressed an annoyed groan and spun, glaring down the hallway and at the window he could just barely see on the other side of the narrow apartment. 'The fire escape?' he considered, then shook his head. Even if they were only on the third floor, it would still be best left as a last resort. There  _had_ to be a reason for the door not letting him out!

Somehow, despite the doorframe casting a shadow beneath the hall light and the faintness of the wax pencil's marks, Dude's eyes found themselves drawn to the spots where Kordelle had etched the runes onto the wall and baseboards. 'Wait a second...' Dude found himself taking a step back as the realization of what was really going on here began to dawn on him.

_"Won't your mom ask questions if you come back early?"_  

What in the world would 'early' have meant if he never told his mother when he was going home?

_"There's a meteor shower coming up tomorrow night, and it can mess with-- well, you know."_

_"What exactly are these seals gonna protect against?"_   
_"Ghosts trying to break in, mostly. But they should also counteract different natural phenomena, too, like meteor showers and ley line fluctuations. I'll teach you about those another time, though."_

_"Try to stay inside as much as possible until the meteor shower is over, okay?"_

_"Auriga, the Charioteer, is one of the most effective powers to channel in order to force a ghost's passing into the aether. If called upon during the Aurigids or Delta Aurigids meteor shower, not even the most high-ranking ghost on the ectoplasmic plane can fight it off."_

The concentration runes that Kordelle  _invented_... written around a spell that best takes place  _during_ a meteor shower... a meteor shower that should be messing with a witch's powers, not  _amplifying_ them...

_"We are not exactly humans since we have the ability to harness and use magic from the fabric between dimensions. We do this to protect humans from what comes through the other side:_ ghosts _."_

Kordelle had been so bitter about not being able to do anything about Crom when he attacked. Then Camry came along and saved the day...

_"But then someone really tall and wearing a black cloak appeared and I think they kidnapped Camry!"_

That vision of Camry being struck by that white light and disintegrating--!

When he lifted his phone back up, Dude found that he had to swallow multiple times to wet his desert-dry throat and speak. "Seersh... Seersh?"

"Yeah?" she called back, still on the move if her labored breathing meant anything.

"W-Would... you say that the person in the cloak was roughly six feet tall?" Dude asked, his voice so faint that he had to repeat himself when she couldn't hear him over the passing cars.

"Uhhh..." Saoirse mumbled as she thought back on the fleeting memory she had of the whole ordeal. With both Camry and Shasta on the ground for most of the time, they weren't good references for the stranger's height. However, when he stood up straight while Shasta picked up an unconscious Relle Phantom, he had definitely had almost a whole head's difference on the purple-haired ghost. Since she was undoubtedly a couple inches taller than Camry, who was 5'2" to someone who was being generous, that would have certainly put the stranger in the ballpark of six feet. "You know, I think he  _was_. Wait-- do you  _know_  who did this?"

"Son of a--!" Dude shouted at the top of his lungs, winding his arm back as if he was about to spike his phone into the floor with all his might. He didn't, however, and spent a precious few seconds focusing on his breathing. Then the phone was back on his ear; he had turned off the speaker function already. "Change of plans, Seersh. Meet me at the school if you can, okay?"

"The school? Why?" Saoirse asked. "It's kind of far from here--"

"Then get on a Tram, I dunno--!" Dude started to yell. Saoirse went silent on the other end of the connection, and guilt swept over him like a tidal wave. "Sorry, I just-- yes, I know who did this. And I'm gonna kick his sorry  _ass_  if I'm right."

~~

Camry's POV~

You know, I'm getting really tired of passing out and waking up in an unfamiliar place. I'm also really tired of my head hurting so much every time it happens. But I'm  _especially_ tired of the witch that keeps doing this to me.

And who knows? Maybe I deserve it, but the other ghosts don't. Even if they act so bad all the time, they're not entirely 'evil.' Hell, Shasta had no reason to resuscitate me after our 'dip' in the lake, but she did it anyway, saving my half-life.

Was it worth it in the end?

"A-Aagh..." I struggled to speak and only made a low, guttural moan. The static in my brain was unbearably loud, cutting off access to my own thoughts and disengaging my volition from my limbs. Trying to sit up was like willing someone else do it while watching from a distance; was this my body or someone else's?

"It's remarkable."

That accented voice spoke from right by my left ear, and with a gasp and a jolt everything came rushing back in a flurry of sensations. I snapped back into myself, feeling returned all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes, and I was able to open my eyes farther than halfway. "Wha--?"

The ground beneath me was smoother than glass and noticeably less transparent with a pearly gray tint. Walls and a roof of the same material rose up around me, boxing me into a confined space that only allowed me to just barely sit up straight. The owner of that familiar voice peered in at me like I was a newly discovered species of fish in an aquarium-- the misty atmosphere did its share of making the metaphor feel real.

I felt the breath freeze inside of my lungs. I recognized those boulder opal eyes, not to mention that ponytail: "K-Kordelle?" I whispered, disbelieving of what my eyes were telling me.

With a start I turned my gaze down at myself and saw leggings, boots, and gloves. I was still Relle, somehow. "What's going on?" I demanded to know, my hands shooting out to my sides to press against the walls of my box. They didn't budge, but it did make Kordelle smirk a little.

"I'm sure you've figured out what I am," he began, assuming an air of triumph as he rose to his full height of six feet. Even though we were separated by solid walls of... whatever this box was made of, I could hear him without any issue. " _Camirelle_."

I paused in pushing on my cage and stared up at him, wide-eyed and with my mind reeling. 'He knows who I am?  _What?_  But...  _how?_ '

"It's not like you made it very difficult to figure out, Camry," Kordelle stated, seeming to continue with the conversation as if I had spoken my thoughts out loud. "All of the clues were there. Your 'superhero name' is  _literally_ the second half of your real first name. Although... I may not have figured you out so easily if you weren't friends with him."

"S-So, you're a w-witch," I said after swallowing to wet my dry throat. "What do you think you're doing with me, huh? Why have you been coming after me?"

"For a number of reasons: curiosity, hatred, self-preservation." He started to pace back and forth in front of me, his arms crossed over his chest and his black cloak's ends fluttering behind him constantly. "You've piqued my interest. I can't figure you out! Are you a parasitic ghost holding a human host captive? Are you a ghost that can disguise itself as a human?  _What are you?_ " He leaned in close to the 'glass' and stared menacingly at me, offering a no-nonsense type of fierce expression.

"Maybe it's a good thing that you don't know," I ground out between clenched teeth. Kneeling inside my little cell, I balled my gloved hands into fists on top of my thighs. "I don't think even  _I_ know. But I'm not a threat-- to humans  _or_ to you witches."

He snorted in derisive laughter, something I had never heard come out of him before. In the brief moments we had hung out together, he was usually very withdrawn and subdued; I guess his secret life as a magic user explained that. I had planned on trying to get him to open up and be a regular part of our friend group, too! How the tables turn...

"Of course you're a threat!" he chuckled. "Don't you know what a witch's purpose is? We hunt and destroy ghosts in order to protect humanity."

"So do I--!" I started to point out, but he cut me off so fast and so loudly that I instinctively flinched back.

" _You_ make a  _show_ out of it all! You interfere with our job but  _never finish_  it!" Kordelle yelled, jabbing an index finger in my direction. "It's supposed to be done  _quietly_ , in the shadows, to  _protect_ humans from the supernatural-- not make it the headline of every newspaper every other week!"

I opened my mouth to snap a retort back at him, but instead of slinging witty banter in Kordelle's face I came up with absolutely nothing. "I--!"

"So, you're going to tell me everything you know about what you are as well as the other dimension," he concluded, finally stopping with his pacing to face me, stance wide and powerful.

A stubborn will bubbled to life deep down inside me, pulling my brow low over my eyes and my lips back from my teeth. "And what if I don't  _want_ to?"

Bad idea, bad idea! Kordelle didn't have to twitch even the tiniest of muscles to fill my head with a short burst of that same static as before. I screeched and screwed my eyes shut, clapping my hands over my ears in a useless attempt to block him out. " _Stop, stop, stop, stop!_ "

The wave of needles gradually ebbed, leaving me breathless and leaning against a side wall for support as my chest heaved. A bead of sweat dripped down from my temple to my cheek. I didn't have the energy to try and wipe it away.

"Does that answer your question?" he asked me knowingly, a faint shit-eating grin on his face. I so wanted to deck it right off and beat him into the ground for pulling that dick move on me again.

~~

'Why would he want to trap me inside my own apartment?' Dude wondered, pacing up and down the length of the hallway as he struggled to figure a way out of this predicament. He had already tried to leave via a window to the fire escape, but that had been enchanted with the same spell as the door. He couldn't even lift the sash! Ariadna had given it a shot as well and met the same result on both the window and the front door. Perhaps the spell focused on other witches, or just people in general; that theory couldn't be tested until their mother returned from work in another hour or so.

"That's too late!" Dude griped, clutching his silent cell phone in one hand and a handful of his longer green hair in the other. "C'mon, think!  _Think!_ "

'Camry's gonna get blasted into nothingness if I don't get over there and stop him! But what can I  _do?_  Kordelle must've thought of everything at this point...  _Argh!_  If only I wasn't such a beginner at magic!' he fretted.

Not only that, but he didn't have any spell books with him that might have lent him a clue or solution. He had even given back that one he had stolen from that little cubby at the school--

Dude froze mid-step, the gears in his brain whirring at breakneck speed. How had he opened  _that_ door without any instructions or help? It was also sealed off, but he had still figured out how to open it to take that little guidebook. Hadn't he used his familiar and his specialization?

'That's it' he realized, and without a second thought he conjured his familiar and slapped their palms on the wooden door. He closed his black opal eyes and furrowed his brow in an effort to concentrate. 'Just like before. C'mon, just like before.'

There it was: the energy powering the spell itself, flowing through the door via a rune at the top of the door frame. One of his magical hands reached up higher to get a better grasp on its ebb and flow while the other went for the doorknob. Deep down, Dude could tell that the spell answered to Kordelle's specific magical abilities. The feeling he got from it was nothing new, especially after spending nearly a full week in the same house as the other witch. Now all he had to do was...

"Make it mine," he whispered, and with a sharp intake of breath he heard the door click. It was open! Without a second to lose, he yanked it inward and darted out, all but slamming it shut behind him in a desperate bid to get a running headstart. He was already so behind-- who knew if Kordelle had  _already_ performed the Auriga purging spell!

Saoirse was number two on his speed dial, so he didn't have to wait long to reach her again. As soon as he stepped out of the elevator and dashed out of the apartment complex, service returned to his phone and she immediately picked up. "Seersh, I got out of my house. I'm on my way!"

~~

"That can't be true."

"Look, I'm telling you, it is! I was split from my body and a ghost core started to develop-- I didn't have any say in the matter! But I'm  _still alive!_ "

My knees were cramping, locked in such an uncomfortable kneeling position for so long, and the temperature in the basically ghost-proof cube was rising thanks to my breath and aforementioned ghost core. "Look, Kordelle, I'll-- I'll prove it to you."

"How so?" he inquired, lifting an eyebrow curiously.

I squared my shoulders and steeled my gaze, holding his firmly even as the white rings of light passed over my face and completed my transformation. The pink satin folds of my cotillion gown billowed into existence, spilling over my feet behind me while it almost didn't cover my knees in front. "I'm human."

His expression, to my dismay, was the epitome of 'Are you  _kidding_ me?' "I can literally read all of your thoughts at will. You think this little illusion is going to convince me?"

"Fine, then read my thoughts if you have to!" I yelled, throwing my arms out to my sides and accidentally smacking them into the walls of my prison. I winced and drew them back to my chest. "Whatever it takes to make you believe me. I'm still alive!"

"I don't need to do that. I've already been in your head before. It's... startlingly complex for a ghost, I'll give you that, but ghosts have been known to trick themselves into thinking they're alive before." Kordelle turned away from me then, cupping his chin as he mulled over the new information I had begrudgingly given him.

"I'm not  _tricking_  myself," I scoffed. How  _dare_ he think I'm delusional! "I know what I am."

"You  _just_ said you don't know that," he shot back without turning around or looking over his shoulder.

"Well--!" I started to say, but the words died on my tongue as they had so many times already. It was starting to get a little worrying, actually. This guy, this  _kid_ , was going to kill me or really mess me up if I didn't convince him to let me go. Of course, he was hellbent on rationalizing away every argument I put up against his theories, which just made my job that much harder.

Kordelle suddenly made a small sound as if he had just thought of a brilliant idea. "You know," he began, facing me once more and smiling triumphantly, "I had a little bit of help with discovering your secret identity, Relle Phantom."

I rolled my eyes; sure, I guess it was about that time for me to endure an ego trip by the one who had captured me. Could Kordelle  _really_ be sure that witches and ghosts are all that different? "You mentioned me knowing someone who put you on my trail," I said, folding my arms over my chest peevishly.

"I must admit, you must have very powerful illusion abilities if you were able to trick another witch as long as you did. You made him care about you, believe you were his best friend, and even help you do  _his_  job." By how he was milking this particular tangent so much, he definitely wanted me to realize something.

I slammed my hand against the divide between us, making the structure vibrate ever so slightly. "Dude is  _not_ a witch! He told us so himself! And I've  _never_ tricked him before!"

A twinge of guilt shot through my heart. Okay, so maybe I had tricked him back when I couldn't tell him I was actually Camry during that ordeal with Crom Cruach, but that had been different! I'd needed to keep myself safe and secret until it was the right time!

Kordelle smirked again. Oh, no-- did he pick up on my second guessing? "You're lying to yourself, and you know it. Besides, he never told you any of that." He cleared his throat and patted the front of his throat with his index and middle finger. What I heard next sent a chill of fear all the way down my spine and into my very soul.

"Hey, Cam, it's your best friend, Dude. You'll never guess, but I'm actually a witch!"

~

"Saoirse!" Dude yelled, waving a hand high over his head as he ran across their high school's deserted parking lot. Saoirse jumped out of her hiding place around the corner and stepped into the pool of light offered by a street lamp. Her indigo dress bounced rays off like water on wax paper, giving her swirling skirts an ethereal quality neither of them could appreciate thanks to the panic filling their veins.

"Dude!" she answered, relief drenching her tone. They embraced for a quick split second and started off toward the back of the campus, Saoirse hanging onto his hand as they ran. "Thank Allah you're here! What's going on? Who did this? How do you know who it was?"

"It's a long story," he said. "Do you know anything about witches?"

"Witches-- Dude, we told you about witches while we were all at the mall," Saoirse recalled. "Don't you remember?"

"The mall?" he echoed, his pace slowing as he struggled to remember a memory that wasn't there. "No, I-- when did we go to the mall?"

"Like, a week ago," Saoirse said. "We got boba tea and told you about witches when we saw you disappear into thin air and smoke!

"That... That never happened," Dude said, looking back over his shoulder even though the darkness offered so little to see her by. "Seersh, what are you talking about? A week ago, I was with Kordelle at his house."

"You mean... you  _weren't_  with us at the mall?" she realized with growing, horrified clarity. "But we asked you if you were a witch because that's what the ghosts told Camry! And you said you weren't."

"Wha--?" he sputtered. "No, no, I never said that. Then that means-- Agh,  _Kordelle!_ "

"What about him?" Saoirse asked urgently.

"He's the one behind this," Dude said, resuming their running pace and taking a right onto a rarely-traveled path. The ground beneath their feet shifted from urban to rural in a surprisingly short distance, and soon their shoes were kicking up dust instead of gravel. "He must've tricked you guys. He's a witch like me, and I think he has it out for--"

" _WHAT?_ " That had definitely come out louder than she intended, but Saoirse's whole body was so hyped up on adrenaline that she couldn't exactly control her volume too well. "You're a--?"

"Like I said, it's a long story!" he shouted as well. "But come on, we have to hurry or he's gonna kill her!"  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhhhh MAN, you guys! I am so pumped up for this, you have no idea! (Well, maybe you do, especially if you've read any of the other things I've written... I just love it when the action gets really intense, okay?)
> 
> Please leave me a comment down below! Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next chapter!


	19. Superstition Spectrum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably warn you guys that there are some mildly disturbing interrogation/manipulation scenes up ahead in this chapter. I know I've written way worse before, but I thought I should let you know so you can proceed at your own caution. Now, onward!

Camry's POV~

The stupid box must have been enchanted to contain ghosts because, despite my shakiness in the department on intangibility, I couldn't even stick a curious hand through the ceiling or sides while Kordelle's back was turned. As the evening wore on and the moons rose higher into the relatively clear sky, he battered me with questions I didn't know the answers to. Slowly, like the sixth moon inching its way above the distant horizon, my volatile levels of anxiety and fear rose. Inside the box, the air was heating up, thickening with dread and the smell of smoke. In my human form, my lungs choked on the caustic air and a dull pain grew a bit sharper in my chest with every heartbeat.

"Look, Kordelle, I-I don't know how to tell you this any other way, but  _I am a human!_ " I insisted, internally wrestling with the urge to cough. "And you're keeping me inside of an airtight box! It's getting hard to breathe!"

"Ghosts don't need to breathe," he quickly pointed out. It looked like he was about to say more, but I cut him off to seize a thread of logic and pull on it.

"But  _I do!_ " I put a hand on the wall between us and decided not to hide how hard it was to resist coughing. "Shouldn't that tell you that I'm human?"

"You're not a human," he said, turning away and barking an order into the darkness. To my mellow surprise, Shasta floated into view, still tangled up in that flowered rope and acting like a mindless shell. "Shasta, tell me what you know about her—about  _Relle Phantom_."

"Relle Phantom doesn't belong in the Ghost Zone," she immediately intoned, sounding duller than a medieval history teacher whose sole purpose in life was to make students fall asleep in their class. "Relle Phantom isn't a ghost or a human. Relle Phantom cannot fly, go through solid objects, or duplicate herself. Relle Phantom has a volcanic core that is too dense for a real ghost, but Relle Phantom is not alive."

"Shasta," I whispered, and to my horror my eyes started to well up with frightened tears. Those daffodils, with their red aura, looked so painful; what patches of skin I could see touching the petals were raw, exposing green ghost flesh and dripping with ectoplasmic blood. A stream of the unearthly substance ran over her forehead and streaked down her face, passing next to her left eye on its way toward her chin. "I  _am_  alive..."

"A human that isn't alive isn't a human at all," Kordelle stated confidently, scanning my face for any hints that showed I was defeated by this logic. "A human that isn't alive but retains consciousness is a ghost, and ghosts do not belong in this dimension. I have to destroy you once and for all.

"And still, I just—" he suddenly continued. With fat, exhausted tears rolling down my cheeks, I lifted my head just a little to look up at him. "This makes so little  _sense_. A living corpse—I never would have thought it was possible! It's an oxymoron  _personified!_  Not a ghost, zombie, or human, but somehow existing as all three  _at the same time_. I wonder if writing about this will get me recognized by the other clans..."

" _You_  hunt ghosts," I began in a watery voice after he had trailed off for more than a handful of seconds, lost in thought. It gave me a chance to defend myself one last time. I wiped away my tears and sucked in a breath of muggy air, letting it out in one big rush. " _I_ fight ghosts. Shouldn't we be working together? We both have the same goal: protecting humanity. I'll bet we would be so much stronger if we—"

"Work together?" he finished skeptically for me. "You're  _hilarious_." I shrank back automatically as he approached the cube and crouched down to be more or less eye-to-eye with me in my restricted position. "Camirelle Lidiare Dowell, while you exist, you threaten the entire witch community. You tricked a witch into siding with you, making him care about you and fight for your own cause. Your "ghost fighting" is a  _mediocre_  facsimile of the real deal—at  _best_ —and the fact that you can't even be sure of what you really are makes you a dangerous liability.

"You're a ticking time bomb. Nothing like you should exist in this world or the next—what Shasta said confirms that much. You don't belong in the Ghost Zone, and you don't belong with humans in this dimension. It's unnatural, which isn't a term used loosely by magic users."

Kordelle straightened, looking down past his nose at me. As much as it pained me to admit it, I was definitely trembling in fear, leaning back to maintain eye contact even though I so wanted to look away. "You know too much. You're volatile and likely to be catastrophic one day, like an invasive new species. We can't allow there to be any more of you."

"Y-Y... You're starting to sound an awful lot like some sort of supremacist," I spat after finding my tongue. At the mention of "more of you," however, my thoughts immediately reacted by flitting to my memories, both good and bad, of Danny and Vlad in the other "Earth."

"Don't you  _dare_  start something like that," Kordelle yelled, anger flashing bright in his eyes. "I'm giving you one last chance to prove you're not  _really_  a ghost, and after you  _fail_  it, I'm going to do what has to be done."

He walked away then, leaving me to try and follow with my eyes. The box's foggy, opaque walls let him vanish after he walked a fair enough distance away, though, which left my eyes to turn toward Shasta in her numbed state. " _Shasta,_   _please_ ," I begged, searching for some form of recognition in her face. She had to still be in there somewhere! "Talk to me, Shasta!"

She remained absolutely catatonic, floating up and down idly and staring blankly at nothing. My last hope died in my chest, wilting like a flower under an unseasonably merciless summer sun. And like that analogous sun, my inner fire was growing hotter and hotter.

Kordelle returned half a moment later, bearing a loop of white rope that looked nearly identical to the one Shasta was trapped by. The same knots were there as well, though I didn't see any flowers blooming. "Do you know what blood blossoms are?"

I shook my head mutely, swallowing my yearning to hiss and spit and smolder with the heat of the Earth's center.

"They're a special type of flower that's been enchanted by a witch," Kordelle explained, unwinding the coils and dropping them in a wide berth around me. As he slowly circled not unlike a vulture around me, he spoke. "They repel all forms of ectoplasm, causing incredible pain if that ectoplasm is attached to a conscious source. It's... an intense reaction, to say the least, but you won't be able to do anything about it once this rope contracts around you.

"Also, I hope you can appreciate the irony of the flowers that ended up in this rope," he added in a grotesquely mirthful aside as he laid the end of the rope down on the ground, connecting it with the beginning in a surprisingly perfect circle. He must have had practice already; Shasta didn't meet my eye when I glanced at her again. "They're asphodel. I looked up the meaning later on: "My regrets follow you to the grave." Apparently, they're a symbol of Persephone, who spends half of her time with the living and half in the Underworld."

"If you think that's funny, it's  _not_ ," I ground out, struggling to rise up on one knee while ducking down to not hit myself on the ceiling of my cramped prison. "And you talk too much. Shove your Harry Potter wand so far up your ass that it flies out of your mouth!"

Kordelle didn't react to that much beyond a glare and an added tightness to his jaw. "If you  _are_  as human as you say you are, then these shouldn't have any effect on you. If they do, well, that's that."

I narrowed my eyes at him even as my stomach dropped. "Isn't that the same line of logic behind the  _Salem Witch Trials?_  You're such a  _hypocrite!_ "

His response was neutral, betraying no emotion whatsoever, as he lifted his arms out to either side. Kordelle stood at the perimeter of the roped circle. "Camirelle."

Even though he had said my whole first name earlier, this time felt... different. A thrum pulsed through me, wrenching me back to the verge of dissociation even as I fought to ground myself. I dug my painted nails into my palms until they ran slick with drops of blood; I bit my lip, destroying my lipstick that much more than it already was; I lowered my head and focused on my haggard breathing inside the protective curtain of my own hair.

"Lidiare."

Just like that, the box melted into thin air, depositing me on warm grass and dirt. Another beat of magic rushed through me, sending the need to puke up my throat even as I couldn't be sure if I still had a stomach or a mouth anymore. I stared at my fists, at the tiny pools of crimson blood welling up around my sparkly pink fingernails, and let out a rugged breath. And just like that, my decision was made.

Crouching down on one knee, I rose on wobbly legs and took off, running more or less directly at Kordelle. This was probably what it felt like to try running drunk, but I didn't care. He frowned, I think, which was less of a reaction than I was hoping for, but I don't think I got close enough to try and stop him.

"Dowell."

The stupid white snake— _rope_ —snapped into action, latching onto me from all sides so blindingly fast that I couldn't even be sure if he finished saying my last name before it reacted. My legs knocked together, pinned and not going anywhere, and my bare arms suffered a similar fate as they were squeezed into my ribcage. A length of the rope crossed over my mouth, where a knot conveniently wedged itself in between my lips like a ball gag. I tumbled to the ground, bouncing and sliding with no way of using my limbs to stop myself, and ended up at Kordelle's feet. No matter how much I writhed and jerked, the rope wouldn't come loose!

I heard him sigh and glanced up, my shoulders still whipping from side to side to try and unwind the enchanted bonds. Kordelle held a hand out over my, his middle finger and thumb touching, and said in a reveling tone, "Vita enim coactus."

His fingers snapped, the sound echoing through my entire world.

And I wished I had died.

 

 

 

 

"Dude, where the heck  _are_  we?" Saoirse demanded as she swatted at yet another branch that threatened to snag on the edge of her hijab. They were running, still hand in hand, down a dusty road lined with dense, intimidating trees that reached for them as they ran. It was probably just a trick of the light, but it almost did seem like the boughs really  _were_  trying to grab them.

"It's a coven's house," he answered without looking back at her. For some peculiar reason, even though they had been running without stopping for such a long way, neither of them sounded particularly out of breath anymore. Saoirse had never been one for physical work or sports, so this newfound endurance was a little on the unnerving side of things that had happened so far. "I think he took her there to perform the spell. We're almost there, so hang in there, okay?"

"I—yeah, yeah, I'm fine, actually," she admitted, a puzzled look on her face. "But... you said you were—"

"A witch," Dude finished for her in a tight voice. "Yeah, it was a shock to find out. I'll tell you and Cam everything later, okay? I promise."

Saoirse looked at him seriously, taking in the sight of his back and shoulders in such fierce locomotion. He was so determined, so motivated by this threat about which he knew the most. But... Kordelle, a witch? And he wants to  _kill_  Camry? It seemed so out of left field, so spontaneous and far-fetched, that it couldn't be real.

Even so, when the image of a lifeless corpse being buried in a satin pink dress flitted through her mind, Saoirse steeled her nerves and gripped Dude's hand that much tighter. "Okay. But first, we— _Aah!_ "

That brief, high-pitched scream came from their hands being torn apart and Saoirse tripping, falling hard on her knees. Dude skidded to a stop and doubled back immediately, taking her upper arm in both hands to help her up. "Seersh, are you okay?"

"I—Oww..." she groaned, dusting off her palms and trying to step up so she could stand. The second she tried to move forward, she lurched forward again and planted her hands back onto the hard-packed road. "My feet are stuck to the ground!"

"What?" Dude gasped, and she carefully pulled aside the hem of her skirt to reveal a heeled shoe embedded in the dusty soil of the dirt road. She visibly tried to lift it and only succeeded in yanking her foot free of her shoe.

Dude's mind reeled with the possibilities. It was definitely a spell—maybe one to keep humans away from the coven's base?—but there was no time to try and repeat how he had made the door's spell work for instead of against him. Camry needed them  _now!_

"Take off your shoes and get on my back," Dude decided, crouching down next to her. "Maybe it won't slow us down if you don't touch the ground."

"Okay," Saoirse said, stepping out of her other high heel and hooking her knees around his hips, hanging onto his shoulders carefully. She suppressed a small "Whoa" when he stood up straight and took off, somehow resuming their earlier pace despite carrying a girl literally four inches taller and fifteen pounds heavier than he.

"Hoedus."

The trees began to thin, revealing farmland and diminutive hills beyond the forest. A large farmhouse three stories tall loomed up at the end of the road, all of its shuttered windows depressingly dark and lifeless. The creeping vines of ivy threatening to take over the building did little to help lessen how abandoned it looked.

"Hassaleh."

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead--!

"Theta Auriga."

Overhead, the stars twinkled peacefully, offering little light but an abundance of dreamy hope. A set of six seemed to glow brighter up above, highlighted by the streaking flashes of white light that disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. The meteor shower had already begun!

"Menkalinan."

The flowers burn, they hurt, oh my god I'm being torn apart and I  _can't! Move!_  My body won't listen to me! My tongue is on fire, put it out! Saoirse, Dude,  _I'm so sorry!_

"Alnath."

Dude veered sharply around the side of the farmhouse and dashed down a footpath as fast as his feet could carry him. Was it Saoirse's imagination, or could she literally feel how fast his heart was racing? Or maybe that was just her own, so full of adrenaline and secondhand terror that she could barely breathe.

He had been right to go down the side path, because in seconds a clearing illuminated by a wide array of candles lay before their eyes. A tall figure in a black cloak stood a few short paces in front of someone kneeling with their head bowed. Kordelle—Endellion—held a book in one hand while the other was extended toward the immobilized Relle, whose body was transparent to the point where the light of a cluster of candles behind her was visible through her spectral image. A second body lay on the grass just a handful of feet away, the pink folds of her high-low skirt bunched up underneath the flowery rope that bound her. Six-petaled flowers, soft white save for the mauve stripe down the center of each, sprouted all along the rope and emitted a wafting scarlet fume that covered Camry's body like a blanket of smog.

Saoirse dropped from Dude's back the second he let go of her knees and made a beeline for Endellion, who swung his hand up high and made to bring it down toward Relle.

"Cape— _Aaah!_ "

Four hands, two flesh and two magic, latched onto Endellion's outstretched arm and yanked it aside. At the same time, Dude pivoted to put his back to the other boy and leaned forward, throwing all of his weight into the motion and sending Endellion flying over his shoulder! Endellion shrieked in utter shock and bounced twice, rolling to a stop beyond the edge of the candle circle. "What the--?" he gasped, spitting grass and dirt when he lifted his spinning head.

_"What the actual fuck do you think you're doing?"_  Dude roared, his hands clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles stood out whiter than the rest of his skin.

Saoirse wasted no time at all in using the witch's distraction to rush over to the kneeling ghost. "Camry, look up, it's me," she said softly but desperately, taking Relle's shoulders and shaking them back and forth. All the good that did was it made her move a little; she didn't even  _breathe_  in response. She, too, was chained by a transparent wreath of asphodel flowers, which refused to budge when Saoirse locked onto a section around her shoulders and tugged. She yanked fiercely, but her hands just pressed through her girlfriend's image like it was nothing more than an illusion.

"Cam—" she realized, turning her gaze to her left and noticing the full-color, one hundred percent solid body of Camry lying on the ground. Saoirse scurried over to it and pressed a hand to Camry's cheek. To her absolute horror, she was... "Cold. She's  _cold_ ," Saoirse panicked, her hands shaking and her eyes darting all up and down the other girl's body. Camry was  _never_  cold, not even in human form! That awful rope with its awful flowers--! She immediately grabbed it where it snaked around Camry's midriff; it was definitely more real than the one trapping Relle, though it, too, wasn't going to give any time soon.

It was a good thing she had come prepared for just about anything, then.

She reached into her hijab and fumbled around a little before feeling the snap of a hair clip opening. When she pulled the stainless-steel accessory out into the moonslight, Saoirse pried off one side of it and revealed exactly what she had been looking for: a deeply serrated and razor-sharp edge, perfect for sawing.

" _Dude?_ " Endellion sputtered in bewilderment. "Mate, what the hell are you  _doing_  here?"

"No, what the hell are  _you_  doing?" Dude shot back, stalking forward on heavy steps. He kicked a candle over, uncaring, and towered over the guilty witch. "You're trying to kill my best friend? What the  _actual fuck?_ "

" _No!_  No, no, no," Endellion answered, rising to his hands and knees before sitting back on his haunches. "Look, Dude," he sighed, "this isn't what it looks like, I swear. I'm not killing your friend because that  _thing_  isn't your friend."

"And the lying? Tricking Saoirse and Camry into thinking I was with them last week?  _Locking me in my house and telling me not to try and leave?_ " Dude spat, leaning in closer little by little with every key point. "The bullshit about the meteor shower, the stories, the cover-ups—why the hell are you doing all of this?"

Something told Saoirse that the flowers, with their unnatural red smoke wafting off of them, were the cause of Camry's spirit splitting from her physical body after all. She tried to hack off the blossoms themselves first, but when they grew back literally seconds later, it became clear that she needed to try a deeper approach: the knot itself. The cords were tough, resisting her first clumsy attempts at getting a steady rhythm going, but once she found a way to do it, her multipurpose hair clip made short work of the knot. To her surprise, as soon as the knot unraveled, the flower it bloomed out of crumbled into glittering red dust and drifted away on the wind. A little black seed tumbled to the ground, unnoticed and uncared for.

"Dude, you're really worked up, but if you just listen to me, I can—" Endellion tried to say as he rose to his feet, his hands held out in a placating gesture.

"What, you can get in my head again?" Dude interrupted, his fists painfully tight at his sides. "I thought witches  _protect_  humanity, not try to  _kill_  it!"

"That thing is  _not_  a human!" Endellion yelled with a sweeping gesture in Camry and Saoirse's general direction. Luckily, he hadn't noticed the second girl hacking away at the rope just yet, which gave her the spare time she needed to work at the bonds. "That's what I'm trying to  _tell_  you! It's tricking you into believing that your friend still exists, but she doesn't!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Dude demanded, a fierce smolder making the opalescence in his eyes glint.

"This is exactly why I didn't want you around for this," he groaned, half to Dude and half to himself. "Something like this is so hard to explain..."

" _Try!_ "

About half of the knots were severed, and an unpleasant ache was forming in Saoirse's right forearm and hand. She ignored it in favor of working faster, fighting through the burn to split the knot nestled against Camry's belly button. The asphodel flower withered into that same dust, but she didn't bother watching. Camry's skin was still deathly cold, and she was so unresponsive that an inkling of doubt had begun to worm its way into Saoirse's brain. 'What if we're too late? Please hang on, Cam!'

Meanwhile, both Shasta and Relle remained exactly as they had been, in stasis and awaiting a command by the witch that owned their minds. When a physical knot was chopped away, the same appeared on Relle's spectral form, slowly freeing her. She didn't react one way or the other. Relle, Camry, could have been a posed doll for all the life she showed.

"Whatever it was that killed her, that brought Relle into existence, didn't preserve Camry's life," Endellion began in that slightly pitying tone, as if he was about to deliver soul-crushing news. "Or, at least, not entirely. That's a hybrid of two things that do  _not_  mix, no matter what. It doesn't belong, especially when it's got a grip on you."

He glanced to the side, at a cluster of candles flickering side to side sporadically in a faint late-night breeze. "I know it looks bad, but I tried to keep you indoors so I could take care of this and explain the truth to you later. It was only to protect you, I swear." The conviction in his eyes was honest; it didn't take a mind-reader to discern that much.

" _Maybe_  you should have talked to me about it instead!" Dude yelled. He could feel his magic pulsing through his body like a second, rapid heartbeat amped up by his turbulent emotions. "I told you I'm done with secrets, didn't I?"

Only a couple of knots were left: one pressed into the hollow at the back of Camry's jaw bone, and one that peeked out between her slightly parted lips. Saoirse made sure her cuts were careful. The last thing they needed was for Camry to be saved from a witch's spell only to bleed out via a slashed throat. The flower pressed against the right side of her neck exploded into that same red dust, and Saoirse quickly brushed most of it off of her girlfriend's skin before turning her attention to the final knot.

But... where was the flower? 'Do they not all have seeds inside?' she wondered as she pried Camry's mouth open further and struggled to line the tiny saw blade up in such a way that she wouldn't cut skin.

_Shhk. Shhk. Shhhk_... There was the seed! She seized it quickly and tossed it aside. There, now it couldn't accidentally be swallowed. And the flower--?

Her stomach bottomed out at the realization of what had just happened. That red dust was on Camry's lips—the flower had sprouted inside of her mouth! What did that mean, though?

"Camry?" Saoirse called out, cradling the smaller girl's head on her lap as she threw away the last lengths of severed rope. "Camry, can you hear me?"

" _What?_ " Endellion gasped, whipping his head around to stare at the girl clad in fancy indigo fabric. "You—Do you have  _any_  idea what you've just  _done?_ "

No one had the chance to answer before a frighteningly frosty wind gusted over them, blowing all of the candles out and immediately plunging the clearing into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rest of this night will have to be continued in the next chapter, so be on the lookout for when that's posted! It shouldn't be too long now ^_^' Thanks for sticking with me through all of this, I really appreciate it.


	20. Dangling Cliffhangers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna go ahead and preface this chapter with a warning for descriptions of mild gore. As one may predict after reading the preceding chapters, a ghost's encounter with a witch would _usually_ not end well, so... yeah. Okay! Thanks for indulging in this teeny pause. Please continue with your irregularly scheduled program.

No one moved. No one said a word. No one even fully took a breath.

The candles had all been snuffed out in one fell swoop, leaving their world in a silvery, monochromatic nightscape that their eyes weren't entirely adjusted to right away. If there weren't so many waxing moons in the sky that night, or had it been overcast, they would have all been completely out of luck in the vision department.

Well, maybe not  _all_  of them would have been rendered so helpless. Shasta, as catatonic as she had been ever since her volition was severed, gave off a faint white aura that helped alleviate the depth of some of the shadows. Relle's transparent specter would have done the same if it was still kneeling in the grass, but it had disappeared at the exact same time the candles had gone out.

Suddenly, two rings of light, tinted a faint orange at the edges of the white arcs, lit up the night and left everyone blinking floating spots out of their retinas. "Camry?" Saoirse gasped hopefully, having turned her head away at just the right moment to avoid being totally blinded.

Saoirse felt the other girl roll out of her lap and crumple onto the grass, making weak noises of pain as she moved. "Camry, wait, hold on—" she started to say, reaching out to try and find her with her hands. Why wasn't she giving off any light, unlike how Shasta was? Just as any other ghost, Camry's ghost form had a white outline that helped mark her as something not quite of this world.

"Don't try to help--!" Endellion started to order in warning, but he was drowned out before his sentence could finish.

A burst of sound, harsh and wet, cut through the air, and with the firepower of a tiny flamethrower each candle exploded back to life, shedding the clearing in more light than anyone knew what to do with. There, on the ground in front of Saoirse, lay Camry—well,  _Relle_ —on her elbows and knees, head limply bowed and hair shielding her face from view. Her whole body trembled as she fought to prop herself up any further, and with another hacking cough the candles pulsed with volcanic temperatures.

"Cam—!" Dude tried to say, but he froze as the newfound light sources shed a little bit of gravity on the situation.

Every spot where an asphodel blood blossom had flowered against her body, an angry green burn wept ectoplasmic blood and missed sizeable gashes of ghostly flesh. Her uniform was splashed in the acid green afterlife-force where it wasn't charred and roasted away. She coughed again, and the candles responded with flames that reached a dozen feet in the air; Dude jumped back to avoid having his arm hair singed off.

Slowly, her head jerking spastically with the gargantuan effort, Camirelle lifted her head, and the curtain of her hair parted to expose a slice of her face. Her brow was so low, so furrowed with anger, that Endellion would have been struck dead on the spot if looks could kill. Even more ectoplasm, glowing green and viscously dripping from her chin, poured over her lips and formed a puddle under her; by the looks of it, it was still growing. However, despite all of that—despite her deep, ghastly wounds, her incessant shaking, and the apparent fact that she was too weak to even hold herself up—there was one thing that triumphed over the rest of her tortured condition.

Her eyes. Peeking out between strands of bright blue hair, Camirelle's normally sphalerite eyes with white surroundings had blindingly, unnaturally, unearthly  _orange_  irises and burgundy-colored scleras. They glowed like twin headlights and churned with the combined hatred and wrath of every ghost in the Ghost Zone. Right then, they were focused on Endellion's angry, shadowed face.

"Do you have  _any_  idea how hard it is to make those binding spells?" Endellion griped in Saoirse's direction as he reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out a velvet bag with a golden threaded drawstring. "They take forever! And now the ghost is free, too. Ugh, this night is  _never_  going to end..."

Dude stared at him, beyond incredulous at how blasé he was being about the apparent crisis he had just caused single-handedly. "You... I can't  _believe_  you would—Kordelle! She's hurt—we need to help her!"

Predictably, the idea only made Endellion snort in mocking laughter. "Oh, Dude, haven't you been listening to what I've been trying to tell you ever since you  _got_  here?" He fully faced Dude and stalked forward, full aware of the intimidation his height advantage imposed on the shorter boy. "I don't 'help' ghosts. Ghosts are not shes, hes, or theys—they're  _its_. And it needs to be disposed of before it destroys  _our_ entire community."

Saoirse had lurched forward to try and help her shaking, silently bleeding girlfriend in whatever futile way she could: by holding her up, using her gentle hands to assess the severity of Camirelle's wounds, talking to her in a soothing tone of voice to draw away her attention from the pain, etc. For all the good it did, a wall of glass ten feet thick could have dropped between them as those glowing neon eyes refused to waver from their furious stare fixated on the root of all their current problems. He opened a small pouch and reached inside, extracting a pinch of red dust that he sprinkled on his palms before rubbing them together.

"Kordelle, what are you doing?" Dude demanded, a hint of fear making his voice sound far less authoritative than he would have liked. "Stop!"

"Wait!" Saoirse cried, throwing both hands out toward the witch in an attempt to keep him from doing... whatever he was planning. " _Please_ , just listen to us, Kordelle! She's not dangerous—she just wants to use her powers to protect the city!"

"Don't think I don't already know all of that," he answered, his hands still pressed together and angled down toward the ground. Under the strong moonslight, the red dust glittered similarly to the powder the blood blossoms had exploded into. "I'm just telling it, in no uncertain terms, that its services are no longer required."

For how much it pained her to, Camirelle sluggishly scooted forward and reached out a hand, seemingly trying to move in Endellion's direction until she latched feeble fingers onto Saoirse's sleeve. Saoirse sucked in a startled breath and immediately returned the gesture, holding her girlfriend's ectoplasm-slick hand tightly and offering sturdy leverage for her to rise on. Those twenty-one wounds all over her body made it difficult to find places where they could safely touch, but somehow Saoirse managed not to aggravate Camry's wounds any further.

With a voice as thin as rice paper and more shredded than the fodder in a paper recycling plant, Camirelle eked out a single word that somehow was so charged with murderous intent that shivers ran up and down all three listeners' spines for days and nights after. " ** _You_**..." Her eyes glowed their duller orange-red with white scleras then, no longer the cosmic orange of the literal sun, but still burned hotter than the fires of hell. Another round of bloody coughing racked her body and sent the candles into a frenzy of spurts and flickering. At the risk of hurting her injuries, Saoirse cradled her closer and put her own body between Camry and Endellion. Intense heat radiated off of the half-ghost, charring the grass beneath them instantly and yet somehow going completely unnoticed by Saoirse.

Endellion raised a hand once more, this time so determined to see the task through to the end that it visibly showed in his expression. Dude's familiars reappeared from his shoulders and grabbed the extended wrist in a locked grip, halting whatever attempt the other witch was planning. " _Don't_ ," Dude warned him seriously, a similarly heated gleam in his opalescent eyes. "You're only gonna make things worse, Kordelle."

" _Think_  about it, Dude," Endellion snapped at him suddenly, though he didn't try to twist free. "How is putting it out of its misery making things worse?"

The magical hands tightened their hold as Dude's brow lowered even further. " ** _Don't_**."

" _Why?_ " he shouted, using a burst of psychic intent to dissipate the still-underdeveloped familiars. They wafted into vapors and vanished, but Dude was there in an instant to also put himself between Kordelle and the two girls. With all four—five if the immobile Shasta was counted—standing and/or kneeling inside of the ring of fire, their conflict felt cut off from the rest of the world as if said world only involved the immediate area. "Don't you see what you're doing? You're  _siding_  with  _ghosts!_  This is betraying  _all_  of witchkind!"

"Then that's  _their_  problem!" Dude answered in a similar volume, his arms out at either side and marginally shielding Saoirse and Camry from Endellion's sight. "But right now, you need to  _listen_  to me, alright? Stop assuming you know everything and  _listen_  for once, god-fucking- _dammit!_ "

Meanwhile, as the two witches fought to instill a crisis of faith in the other, Camry was single-mindedly struggling to crawl her way over to Endellion and—as Saoirse could only assume through context clues and her own personal experience with some of Camry's personality flaws regarding injustice, poor anger management, and access to unearthly supernatural abilities—pound Endellion's very existence into the ground until he ceased to be. Still holding her in a snug embrace, Saoirse could feel Camry's struggles to move and pulled back to look at her. She tried to speak but only got as far as opening her mouth; a new wave of blood spilled over her lips and dripped to the ground, staining it with the bright colors of Christmas as the blood blossom she had more or less ingested damaged both her ghostly half as well as her human side.

"Camry--!" Saoirse squeaked in a panic, gripping her shoulders firmly and shifting to the side, putting herself directly between Cam and Endellion again. "You're bleeding so much—what are you trying to  _do_ , being hurt like this?"

Camry shook her head emphatically, one hand clutching her throat while the other braced on Saoirse's steady arm. Because words had so totally failed her at that point, she was left with using short, sharp gestures, in between holding onto Saoirse for stability, to try and convey her intentions. She pointed at Shasta, waved a hand toward the heated argument between Dude and Kordelle, and clawed at her useless mouth in a flurry of broken, half-formed thoughts.

"I—I don't understand," Saoirse said, shaking her head after she tried to follow her girlfriend's gesturing. "We just—we need to get out of here, before things get any worse."

Camry pitched forward suddenly and, when she blinked stars out of her eyes, found herself draped over Saoirse's shoulder and loosely clutching the back of her dress, which was undoubtedly ruined beyond all hopes of salvation thanks to the ghost blood collecting on it. Saoirse held her close, whispering soothing, unrelated words in a tangle of Urdu and Gaelic. Through the confusion of so much sensory input, the pain of her injuries was starting to realize their full potential and block all other senses. Tears welled up in Camry's eyes, evaporating into steam before they could touch the skin of her face.

Blinking back those scalding tears, Camirelle tried to take stock of the situation she could see behind Saoirse. Dude and Kordelle were still arguing, shouting over each other about things that didn't altogether make much sense to her ears. Why were they talking about the importance of 'clans' and 'secrets?' That startling display of trickster magic by Kordelle earlier had left her shaken but nonetheless skeptical all the same. Dude wasn't a witch—he would have told them sooner if that were true.

To her right, Shasta floated listlessly, somehow even more lifeless than as the ghost she already was. The daffodils wrapped around her body wavered in the hot wind provided by the rapidly melting candles were unharmed and as poisonous as ever, burning scores across her pale purple skin. A second wind of justified rage pulsed through Relle, and she shakily lifted a hand, curled all but her pointer finger into a fist, and took aim. The tip of her finger began to glow with green light, and a high-pitched whine followed the shot of ectoplasmic fire as it zipped through the air and grazed only the topmost layer of skin on her forehead. A knot rested there, from which a daffodil dangled beneath her hair and above her eyebrow.

Around Dude's head, Endellion caught sight of a bright green glow and immediately lifted both hands high, bringing them down with one arm drawn back and the other stiffly pointed forward. A glowing white bow and arrow had appeared, the arrow nocked and aimed. " _Dude, look out!_ "

The sight of such a huge, impressive weapon made Dude flinch back instinctively, accidentally causing him to pull to the side and expose Camry and Saoirse to Endellion. The knot that Camry had tried aiming at split apart in a puff of red dust and white threads; the second it shattered, Shasta's eyes widened and her brow lifted. Her body suddenly lost definition, blending into a shapeless mass of green that the rope couldn't stay wrapped around. It fell into a heap on the grass, where the other twenty flowers followed the path of the first. Endellion pulled the bowstring back the tiniest bit more and let it fly. With everything happening so fast, the world blurred into a shapeless blend of colors and disconcerted sounds: Dude's yell of warning as he sprang into action too late, Shasta's sudden flight toward her captor, the whistling of the celestial arrow, Camirelle's leaning into Saoirse and grabbing on with everything she had in her.

The arrow embedded itself halfway up the shaft into the space between two formless piles of wax, and two locks of forest green hair fluttered aimlessly through the air as Dude froze on his way to stop Endellion from firing. A sizeable chunk of his side swept mohawk where it once rested over his ear was missing, shorn off by the corner of the arrowhead. Then Shasta was upon Endellion as a cloud of green and violet mist, clouding up around his head for a split second and then dashing away like a second arrow fired into the night. Endellion grabbed at his neck, the magical bow having vanished in a shower of white opalescent vapors, and stumbled back, falling back on his rear, but Dude whirled around with wide eyes to see exactly what that awful arrow had done.

Except... they were  _gone_.

Neither Saoirse nor Camry was on the ground. No dead bodies were pierced by an arrow, no scraps of clothing or anything to mark they were ever there—save for the oddly-shaped scorch mark on the shriveled grass. The arrow, before breaking apart into white sparks and fizzling out of existence, quivered in the dirt, untouched.

Dude's stare was broken when he heard a sharp coughing sound and spun back to glance at Endellion. He was bent forward and clutching both hands to his throat, shaking and shivering as he gasped for air. A tug at Dude's heart pulled him down on one knee as if he was on autopilot and brought his hand to rest on Endellion's shoulder. "Let me see. What did she do?"

Kordelle didn't respond right away; spittle dripped out of the corner of his mouth as he gasped for air. Then, "N-No, it... ecto..."

"Get up," Dude said in a cold, emotionless tone of voice. He put Kordelle's arm across his shoulders and all but bullied the taller boy onto his feet, then started to lead him back toward the coven stronghold. "I'm getting Fan Liu, but I'm not staying. I have to go find my friends and make sure you didn't  _kill_  them."

"No—" Kordelle tried to protest between wheezes, gripping the front of Dude's shirt in a weak hold. "Danger-rous... g-ghost..."

Dude stiffened, still moving forward but not doing quite as much as he could have to help Kordelle stay steady on his feet. "You're the one that made her dangerous tonight. She could've killed you for what you did, you know. She wouldn't, but she was mad enough to. I can't say I blame her."

They were hobbling forward to the bottom of the porch steps by then, and Dude eased Kordelle into a sitting position on the lowest step and paused. "Don't you  _dare_  come after us again, Kordelle."

Then he was at the front door, rapping his knuckles hard on the wooden surface and trying the handle. It opened, and he disappeared inside, dodging furniture and potted plants like a pro. He had spent a week in that house and since his first arrival had managed to become familiar with the clutter and chaos inside the magical house. "Fan Liu, come quick! Fan Liu! Kordelle's hurt!"

~~

Saoirse's POV~

To be honest, I had expected something to go wrong that night. Something always seemed to, no matter what kinds of precautions we would take. I had my Tram pass, a compact Taser, my phone, and the ecto gun—nicked from our time with Crom—all hidden in the skirts of my dress, not to mention the saw barrette hidden in my hair, all in case anything happened. Even so, I don't think anything could have prepared me for the witches, what they did to Camry, or Dude's secret life suddenly being revealed in a panic.

With that being said, I  _definitely_  didn't expect to vanish from that burning clearing and reappear somewhere entirely different.

First of all, I was definitely hanging onto Camry, trying to hold her dead weight up on my shoulder and keep myself between her and Kordelle. Dude had given me a very,  _very_  brief explanation of the witches that thankfully included the fact that witches protect humanity, and seeing as how I was a part of said humanity, he logically wouldn't try to hurt me. Then the ground fell away from under me, or maybe I was suddenly lifted into the air, but wind rushed past my face and tore at my hijab in a dizzying blur of silence and heat. Somehow, in the middle of the confusion, I lost my grip on Camry and crashed down on a blessedly cooler patch of grassy earth. I wheezed for air after the impact knocked my lungs clean out of breath and fumbled around blindly as spots swam in front of my vision. A dull soreness flared up in my right shoulder, but it was minor and I found myself able to ignore it pretty quickly.

I lifted my head and looked around blearily, using the back of one hand to rub an eye while I patted the ground around me experimentally. A thin strip of metal met my fingertips, and when I latched onto it the interconnected wires rattled softly. A chain link fence! I grabbed it with both hands and rose on wobbly legs, leaning against the fence every other second.

"Ugh... Cam," I groaned. By the time I was back on my feet, the spots had more or less danced their way out of my eyes and I could see a few feet in most directions. The night sky was clear and bright up above, displaying a vast array of stars and the seven moons glowing majestically in various stages of waxing and waning. To my left, the fence curved gently to hug the perimeter of a steep drop; beyond that, city lights twinkled like artificial stars.

My stomach heaved and I hooked all ten of my fingers into the chain links. I was on a floating acre! The drastic shift in altitude and implication of just how close I had been to landing on the other side of the fence brought bile up my throat and made me want to hurl. How in the world had I gotten up here? This was strange, even by our friend group's standards!

Suddenly, a gentle cracking sound cut through the far-off din of the city's nightlife below, and I finally took a look at what was to my right. A tree whose roots had grown under the fence to reach my side of it stood at a slightly tilted angle so its furthermost branches hung directly over the drop. I watched for a moment as a leaf came free of its hold and twisted through the air, on an impromptu journey that would last for hundreds of feet before ending somewhere on the hard ground.

Even though the moonslight made it hard to distinguish exact colors and textures, something else was in the tree's branches, draped over and between them like half of a dozen tiny, smooth hammocks. Another crack split the air, louder than the first, and a clean-shaven leg swung into view, a white platform heel dangling only by the toes still inside. The motion of swinging kicked it free, where it then was caught by gravity and led on the same path as the aforementioned leaf. 

" _Camry!_ " I shrieked, gripping the chain links hard enough to leave marks in my skin the next morning. "Camry, wake up!"

I slapped a hand over my mouth then when I realized just how her waking up would literally go down: she would come to, panic, probably become agitated and accidentally break the branches holding her body up, then plummet to an untimely death hundreds of feet beneath my feet. Of course, she was usually perfectly capable of catching herself on a white film negative tile, but after the fiasco with Kordelle, her powers were probably not entirely working. She'd barely been able to lift herself up to sit, let alone use a power like summoning and shaping ghostly matter at will.

Another crack, softer than the second but still loud enough to stop my heart for a moment, cut through my harried hypothesizing and pushed yet another rush of adrenaline through my tired veins. Her head came into view, angled back limply and exposing some of her face where shadows hadn't fallen over it. Camry's eyes were definitely closed, and it looked like her lips were slightly parted thanks to a slack jaw. The dress meant she had changed back to her human form again, supported by how the white aura was still gone.

My eyes darted all over, taking in the situation faster than my brain could think of a plan to save her. Camry dangled right over the drop, so there was barely any chance that she would land on the shallow ledge of ground between the other side of the fence and the veritable cliff face. I couldn't see any sort of door or break in the fence on either side of me, and the top of the chain links was at least a dozen feet high, so climbing it was nearly out of the question.

_Krik—Krik—Crack—Crack!_

I sucked in a sharp breath and pushed forward uselessly on the fence as one of the main branches supporting Camry's weight broke and she slid dangerously away from me, still unconscious and unresponsive. " _Cam_ \--!" I yelled, but it did absolutely nothing except echo against the side of the floating acre's exposed soil column.

Then a tug deep inside of me yanked up, I guess; that's really the only way I can describe it. It wasn't like a heartbeat pulse, exactly, but like a thread attached to the inside of my rib cage was pulled on from someone above me. For the split second it was pulling, I felt positively weightless, like a cloud of mist or a fleeting thought. Maybe that's exactly what I became for a fraction of an instant—it would explain how I was on the other side of the fence in the blink of an eye.

What little momentum that Camry's sliding had built up was enough to keep her going, and the tree unceremoniously dumped her at the same time I lunged forward with everything I had in me. My right hand closed around her forearm as my chest simultaneously collided with the corner of the acre, and for the second time in as many minutes I felt the breath leave me in a  _whoosh_. Camry dropped, I felt a crack jolt up my arm, and  _everything_  went still.

That's not at all hyperbole. Literally, the wind stopped blowing against my face and skirt, the sounds of the night-cloaked city of Bailey Lake fell away from my ears, and Camry's arm didn't slide until I was holding her wrist like I'd thought it would. My arm, bent at an awkward angle over the edge of the cliff, felt oddly numb, but I didn't have time to look at it very closely. I latched onto her wrist with my other hand and started to pull, hooking my toes into the dirt and leaning back with every ounce of might I had in me. "No--!"

 

"It's not like you have to do that," a stranger's voice, slightly distorted with a quiet, overlapping echo, spoke up, and I gasped before dropping my gaze to Camry and the being that glowed just beyond.

He was undoubtedly a ghost with his white aura, red eyes, and blue-tinged skin. He wore a purple hooded cloak, a blackened scar ran in a jagged line over his left eye, and he carried a scepter of some sort; a round clock face rested proudly at the top. In his arms, Camry lay bridal-style, her arm still held up by me. I glared and tightened my grip with the hand I could still feel—why was my right arm so  _senseless?_

"I'm not letting go," I stated firmly, tugging her closer. The ghost followed, still holding her carefully and giving me an even stare.

"Have it your way," he said calmly, breezing up and past me. Still hanging on, he basically dragged me back through the fence and deposited Camry on the dewy grass a few yards away from the broken tree. I scrambled after them, taking it upon myself to cradle her head in my lap and not look at my right arm. Something in my instincts told me that it wasn't exactly 'okay.'

I couldn't help but gape a little; he really had just saved her! My eyes landed on him as he floated calmly a foot above the ground, his tail twisting and twirling around itself absentmindedly. It was then that I could see the last and probably most bizarre thing about his appearance: a grandfather clock and pendulum behind a glass panel was set into his middle, its time frozen at an impossible hour between four and five. "You saved her. Who...  _are_  you?" I asked slowly.

"My name is Clockwork," he answered, and even though he couldn't have easily sounded any more mellow than that, his tone automatically pulled a reverent response out of my heart. "Your friend and I have met before."

Clockwork? That name rang a bell in the back of my brain. Yes, Camry had definitely mentioned a ghost named Clockwork when she had been telling me and Dude all about her adventures in the other two dimensions. But that didn't explain why he was here, saving Camry and what I assumed was stopping time itself.

"I don't have time for many questions," he spoke up, as if reading my mind, "so let's cut to the chase. Yes, time will unfreeze when I leave, and you will find yourself in a lot of pain immediately after. I stopped the flow of time right before the pain signals would reach your brain and tell you that you hyperextended your elbow."

"Huh?" I murmured, staring down at my right arm. It hung at my side, unbending and at an unnatural angle in the elbow joint. Wide-eyed and still ready to throw up from all of the stress of the night's events, only the shame of puking in front of this random ghost kept the bile from coming all the way up and out. "Ohh...  _Ohhh_ ,  _no no no_..."

"Focus," Clockwork commanded, and it was with phenomenal self-control that I managed to glance back at him. To my surprise, he didn't look like he was roughly in his thirties anymore! Instead, a wizened old man with a spindly white beard and an emaciated body hunched forward, still looking at me with his all-red eyes.

"Sorry," I croaked.

"That amulet around your neck is for when you need it most," he said, pointing with the tip of his scepter at my torso. I looked down, half-expecting some sort of "Made you look" joke, and instead found an amulet just as he had said. It was shaped like a gear with five wide notches rimmed in gold. The rest was a rusty shade of brown save for the glowing blue letters C and W, which overlapped in the center. Its black strap hung around my neck on top of my hijab, but... when had he put it there? Had he frozen time to do it when I wasn't looking?

"When I need it most?" I repeated, far past the state of just 'bewildered.' "What do you mean? How will I know when that is?"

"When you're all that's left, you will know," Clockwork said, reaching for the clock on his scepter. A button I hadn't noticed before was at the top, and something told me that time would restart when he pressed it.

"Wait—" I yelped, reaching my left hand out to him and dropped the amulet to let it bump against my chest. "The witches and their powers—is there a way for us to be safe from them? If he comes after Camry again, I..."

My hand fell to her cheek, where my thumb stroked up and down by force of habit. "I don't want to see her in pain like that ever again."

"Pain is inevitable, but—" He paused and drifted closer, offering a wise and melancholic half-smile, "—other forces are at work even now. The answer will present in due time."

Without even saying goodbye, Clockwork pressed the button on his staff and vanished as if he had never existed in the first place. Just as he had said, a burst of agony flared up my arm and I screamed, dropping like a sack of potatoes on my left side as I tried and failed to cradle my arm to my chest. I couldn't move it!

"Cam..." I groaned out mournfully, and then the world faded away into melting shades of black and red. 


	21. Less Talking, More Recovering

Saoirse's POV~

I don't know exactly how we managed to be found in the end. All I can clearly remember is making an off-hand comment about the sun coming up behind the sight of flashing ambulance lights and paramedics running toward us. Even though the night had been chilly, especially so high up on the floating acre, I never felt it thanks to cuddling next to Camry all night long. I probably drifted in and out of consciousness, but the pain from my arm always dragged me back under whenever I tried to explore the lengths of the damage.

The next thing I knew after witnessing the sunrise was the commanding voices of nurses and doctors surrounding me like an ebbing and flowing tide. They were all female, as far as I could tell, and a small part of me was immediately more at ease once I recognized that fact. I'm pretty sure one or two of them tried to talk to me, and I think I managed to answer at least a couple of questions, but everything became fuzzy once the painkillers started dripping into my veins. A warm, familiar hand brushed hair off of my forehead. One of my brothers said something—I couldn't be bothered to figure out which one it was since they weren't talking to me. More doctors, more nurses, more questions: I sensed it all through half-closed eyelids.

And then, it was morning. I woke up, tried to stretch with both arms above my head, and immediately discovered that I could only move my left arm. The right was swathed in stiff bandages at the elbow and completely numb to the point where not even poking it told my brain a thing. I frowned at it for a moment, then looked up to take in my room. Well, it wasn't  _my_  room, exactly. All of the walls were bright white, as were the curtains, sheets, and linoleum floor. Two chairs were pulled up on either side of my bed, but only one on my left was occupied. Dad slept on, both hands linked over his belly and his lolling head propped up by a travel pillow wedged in between his shoulder and chin. His breathing was quiet, hardly making a sound, but I could tell he was probably not getting the deepest of sleeps.

An analogue clock on the wall above the door told me that it was just past six-thirty, and the sliver of sky I could see between the drawn curtains was a pale grey-tinged blue. Wait, the sun was  _still_  coming up? But I had definitely seen the sun rising when the ambulances showed up...

I reached my usable hand out to my father, only just then taking notice of the IV drip stabbed into my forearm, and tried to reach him without jostling my other arm too much. "Dad. Dad, wake up," I whispered sharply, waving to try and get his attention. It took a few more whispers to rouse him, but he snorted suddenly and sat up straight, the pillow falling silently to the floor in the process. "Morning," I said, placing my hand in my lap.

"Oh, Seersh, you're awake," he observed, the relief in his tone making it sound watery. He rose and hugged me carefully, holding on as tight as he dared and longer than I would have expected. "Thank Allah, you're going to be alright."

"Dad, what's going on?" I asked, leaning back after a few moments to look him in the eye. "Why is my arm so bandaged and numb?"

"Your arm is on some very strong anesthesia right now," he explained, fixing the hair around my face a little to tame its unruly waves. "You somehow hyperextended your elbow pretty horribly, Saoirse. Don't you remember how that happened?"

I shook my head automatically and opened my mouth to deny it, but a wave of memories and vertigo suddenly rushed over me and left me reeling. I flopped back onto the pillow that smelled like cheap laundry detergent and put my left hand on my forehead. "Oh, no... Dad..."

"What is it?" he asked, hovering a little bit to look down at me. "Are you feeling sick? The nurses said the painkillers might—"

"Where's Camry?" I accidentally interrupted, too tense to let him continue his tangent. I knew better than any of his university students that it was all too easy to get him to talk forever on rabbit trails of thought, and now was not the time for that. "Is she okay?"

A new look crossed over Dad's face when I mentioned her name, and alarm bells began to clang in my head. "... Dad?"

"Camry... hasn't woken up yet, sweetie," he explained softly; I could tell that he trying his best to keep an even, sympathetic tone of voice, but how much this troubled him was apparent in his eyes as they didn't look directly at mine. Dad's right hand held my left one, squeezing gently and thankfully grounding my senses in something warm and comforting. "She has a lot of burns, but I think the last I heard was that the doctors already ruled out smoke inhalation and head trauma. They're doing everything they can to wake her up, though.

"With that being said, once you're out of here yourself and you heal from the surgery, you're going to have to start physical therapy. It won't be easy, but..."

I do feel a bit bad about it, but at that point I definitely tuned him out in favor of getting lost in my thoughts. Not awake yet, burns all over her body... so, everything that had happened in the clearing  _wasn't_  just a dream.

Maybe that was too much to hope for at that point.

~~

Camry's POV~

I don't usually feel overheated, to be perfectly honest. Something about my ghostly core keeps me well-insulated from its generated heat, and most of the time it only comes across as a slightly elevated temperature in my human form. Of course, all of the magical BS that shitstain Kordelle put me through probably did something to mess with that, because when I opened my eyes I could already feel sweat running down my back and sides of my face. A doctor and two nurses, as the uniforms had me assume, were scurrying around me, checking monitors and the IV feed taped into the crook of my left arm. Hazy with fever and super, super confused, I silently stared at them calling out readings and puzzling over why I was suddenly running a temperature of 105 degrees.

Then again, that definitely could have been a dream because the next thing I became aware of was the cool breeze from an open window soothing the flush on my face. My eyes opened—when exactly did they close?—and landed on the sight of two familiars adults talking in hushed, harried whispers at the foot of my all-white bed. Mom and Dad were taking turns at hypothesizing what happened to me and Saoirse, if I had to take a guess, since I could have sworn I heard both of our names mentioned multiple times. They were both so entrenched in their theories that neither of them noticed when I turned my head to the right a little and discovered that a pad of gauze was taped to the hollow behind the left side of my jaw. A dull throb pulsed through my nerves, igniting a sudden flash of awareness in all parts of my body.

My arm twitched on the bed, then I tried to raise it and failed miserably. It hurt to move, but it hurt even more when it gracelessly dropped back on top of the covers. Finally, Mom and Dad noticed that I was awake and couldn't have darted over any faster; they were all but tripping over their own feet to get closer. "Cammie!" Mom cried out, tears welling up in her eyes while Dad gingerly took my hand in both of his and beamed at me.

"Thank goodness, your fever  _finally_  broke," he choked out, also on the verge of tears himself. "When the doctors told us... A hundred and  _twelve_..."

Mom swept her fingertips across my forehead, moving my bangs from where sweat had caused them to stick to my skin. "But it's okay now. You're awake, and your fever's gone. You're going to be alright, Camry."

"How do you feel, honey?" Dad asked, his smoky quartz eyes searching my face for any signs of discomfort. "You're probably really thirsty. Do you want some water?"

I minutely nodded, then opened my mouth to speak. Everything, literally every single part of my body, was achy as I had never been before. Was that thanks to the life-threatening fever Dad had mentioned? Either way, it paled in comparison to what happened next.

As I made to try and tell them that I was alright, that they didn't need to worry about me or anything, a flash of agony erupted deep in my throat. In the next second, I was curled up on my side and coughing up something scorching hot and viscous, which splattered shockingly bright on the white bedsheets. A hand was on my shoulder—Dad kept trying to ask me what was wrong, and Mom's commanding voice echoed down the hallway some distance off as she called for the hospital staff to come over immediately. The rest of what happened afterwards was a blur of noises and motion that my deep-fried brain couldn't handle all at once. Someone probably said to check for fluid in my lungs, but after a needle pricked my upper arm between two sections of gauze wrapping and tape, nothing else really mattered.

~~

Saoirse's POV~

The final verdict that I had healed enough from surgery to finally go home came the day before I heard the news that Camry's fever had dropped to safe, human levels. I hadn't wanted to leave with her still checked in and at such high risk, but I also didn't want to start any kind of argument with Mum or Dad. I was sure that underneath their relief that I was faring well, they were at least a little bit upset with me for getting myself into such a dangerous situation.

The police had come and questioned me, asking for the truth behind my and Camry's injuries. It had hurt to lie, so I made sure to try and only hint at the truth every so often as I spun a tale of murderous villains and a daring rescue.

"We were at the cotillion, just dancing away, minding our own business, when a ghost fight started happening right outside," I began, looking down at my hands more than at the faces of the two officers. "Everyone started to panic and tried to run away, but I guess Camry and I picked a bad hiding spot because the ghost that Relle was fighting appeared and grabbed us. She used us as shields."

"And where were you two hiding when the ghost found you?" Officer Nattle asked while her partner furiously scribbled notes just behind her.

"Some sort of little kitchen," I answered. "There were a lot of plates stacked up. They went flying and broke everywhere."

"Okay, and do you think you could recognize the ghost that grabbed you?"

The questioning continued in a similar manner, forcing me to cook up a story more or less on the spot. I hadn't expected the police to get involved, though that really was no surprise in hindsight. At least I had a plausible excuse for getting any details wrong or mixed up.

"But then, when Relle got Shasta to let us go, I think she grabbed us herself and then we were... I dunno. My head gets all fuzzy when I try to think about it," I said, which was entirely honest. "I  _think_  we were flying a little bit, or falling. I landed funny on my arm, and everything went black after that. Maybe... Maybe she  _teleported_  us to safety."

The other officer, Officer Luxe, frowned a little deeper when he penned that particularly theory. "You think she made you and your friend 'teleport' to the acre where you were both picked up by the paramedics?" he reiterated.

"That  _sounds_  right," I said, putting a hand to my forehead to feign wooziness. "Ugh, I just... Sorry, my head. It hasn't felt right since I woke up."

Officer Nattle shifted in her seat to discreetly ask if I had been checked for a concussion, to which he answered that I didn't have one. Then she looked at me again, this time with the sort of expression that betrayed a hint of mild skepticism. "It's alright, Saoirse. You don't have to overthink anything. Whatever you give us will help a lot with figuring out what exactly happened that night."

"Do you remember seeing what might have caused the burns on your friend?" Officer Luxe asked as he flipped to a new page in his pocket-sized notebook.

I shook my head at that even as the memory of those white ropes and six-petal blood blossoms flashed across my mind's eye. "No, I don't think so. I doubt it was Relle, though. She  _saved_  us."

"Right, right," he muttered, striking out a line he had just written.

They both left not long after upon a promise to return once I had recovered a little more. As I waved goodbye, the only thought that crossed my mind was that I needed to get Camry to agree on our lies before they got the chance to question her as well. The  _last_  thing we needed was for us to have competing stories that could potentially out her as Relle Phantom.

That was part of why I was back at the hospital only two days after leaving. With my right arm in a sling and a cautiously hopeful smile on my face, Mum and I arrived on the scene of the south wing only to find Mr. and Mrs. Dowell in each other's arms in the hallway, trying and basically failing to slow down their sobbing. The instant we turned the corner and took in the sight of them, my heart plummeted through the floor. Was Camry not getting better? Was she  _dead?_  What in the world was going on?

Mum flew into action by dashing over and putting her hands on the couple while asking for details. We got them in broken sentences punctuated by terrified sniffling and hiccups, but the gist of the story was that right when it looked as though everything would be alright with their daughter, she had tried to speak and immediately started coughing up ridiculous amounts of blood. They were still waiting to hear any new developments from the staff, but the panic and hysteria riled up by the moment had forced the two of them into heartbreaking despair.

I stared for a few seconds as the story began to sink in. When it finally did, I had also sunken into the chair beside the Dowells, my eyes wide but unseeing. All I could process right then was the stupid,  _stupid_  memory of me cutting open that knot without even  _thinking_  to question why I couldn't see a flower growing out of it. Of  _course_  it had sprouted inside of her mouth! She must have inhaled or swallowed some of that red dust, and all the blood and ectoplasm she had been vomiting in the clearing... "It's all my fault."

"Saoirse—what?" Mum said quickly, looking over at me with a puzzled expression. "What is?"

I couldn't help it; my face screwed up with an impending cry fest of my own, but I only had one hand to hide it with, so it wasn't like I did a very good job of that. Mason and Sadie both looked up, too, but ducking my head down didn't do me a lot of good, either. "I-I'm... I'm sorry. It's—I was  _stupid_ , I should've... I sh- _shouldn't've_ —"

It was awkward to pull my knees up, what with my sling getting pinched between my torso and my thighs, but I planted my feet on the seat and buried my face in my kneecaps, which made my long skirt look weird. Someone put her hand on my back—I assumed it was Mum until long, manicured fingernails just barely grazed me and small circles were being kneaded into my tense muscles. A heavy sob wracked my body, but at least the three of them were there to try and comfort me in the midst of all their own anxieties. The gesture only made me want to cry harder, though.

I had done this to her. Camry was coughing up blood because of  _my_  stupidity,  _my_  laziness for taking in details. There were so many things I could have done differently, but... how had things gone so horribly so  _quickly?_

"It's not your fault, Saoirse," Sadie whispered to me, her voice cracking under the strain of so many tears. "None of this is your fault, sweetheart."

Maybe she was right and I really wasn't to blame for it. Maybe I was overthinking, overreacting, overanalyzing the past. Whatever the case was, I knew that I couldn't stop myself from directing the blame onto me, regardless of reality. I could have done better. I could have done things differently.

We wouldn't be in a mess so deep as this one if I had.

~~

I guess the doctors managed to send cameras down Camry's throat once the bleeding had stopped, and with their tiny tools they found that a "significant amount of the surface area in her vocal chords and the lining of her throat" had been seared by some unidentifiable source. Tests were being done 'round the clock to figure out if it was acid, poison, heat, or some other monstrous instrument. I so wanted to blurt out the truth when I overheard the doctors explaining everything to Camry's parents, but the truth was so incredibly surreal that there was no way anyone would believe me. 'Oh, yeah, that was all because of a witch that tried to kill her because she's half-ghost—by the way, she's also Relle Phantom—and the magic flower grew into her mouth and exploded into glitter that eroded and burned her on the inside. Yep, that's the truth. Hey, what's with that white jacket with all the straps?'

Before I knew it, my brief reprieve from classes was over and I was faced with the prospect of going back to school with a useless dominant hand—and  _Kordelle_. The idea of walking through those doors and catching sight of the tall, blond-haired witch sent me into a puking fit when Mum and I returned from the hospital Tuesday evening. I was supposed to go back the following morning, but what the hell was I supposed to do if he was still there? I couldn't face him, not after everything he had done!

And Dude... I hadn't seen him since we had disappeared from the ring of fire. There had been no texts between us whatsoever, so I had no idea how he was doing or what had happened afterward. The urge to contact him had been there, but every time I went to press "Send," something unfamiliar bubbled in the pit of my stomach and I deleted the message. Despite the radio silence, I didn't get the sense that he was in any danger. He and Kordelle had gotten on so well before, and throughout the confrontation Kordelle had never tried to hurt him in any way. I doubted that had changed.

" _Feeeeling_ better?" a soft voice asked from the ajar doorway to my dim bedroom. I lay on my bed, a damp cloth plastered across my forehead and eyes. The vomiting spell had passed, though the nausea from my hopeless worrying had yet to go.

I hummed a noncommittal answer to that, and Liam padded inside. A second pair of footsteps followed him. One of my brothers jumped onto the edge of my bed, making the mattress bounce and rock. "Dad said a popsicle might make you feel better," Aidan announced in his outdoor voice. Even after being told day after day that he needed to use his "inside" voice, the concept seemed to perpetually evade him. "Want one?"

"No, thanks," I groaned, lifting the washcloth a little to glance at them. Aidan stood over me, one foot on either side of my knees and his hands balled into fists on his hips. Liam quietly stared at me from his stance on the floor. "What is it?"

"How come you get to stay home from school while we can't?" Liam blurted out.

"Yeah, it's not fair," Aidan chimed in. "We want to skip school, too!"

I suppressed a groan and let the cloth fall back into place across the bridge of my nose. "Maybe you'll get to stay home like me if you hyperextend  _your_  elbows."

"What's 'hyperextend' mean?" Liam asked, sitting cross-legged on the edge of my bed and looking intently at my arm, still in its tight sling. Aidan also sat down, squishing my legs without a second thought, so I sat up and threw the washcloth at him. He caught it in the face and squealed, rolling off of me. " _Sis_ ,  _Sis_ , what's 'hyperextend' mean?"

I explained it to them then, using their own arms to more or less show how the joint is only supposed to bend so far. They grimaced dramatically, their faces scrunching up in unison. That wasn't the end of it, though.

"See this bone right here?" I said, indicating the ulna in Aidan's right arm. "It's got a hook on its elbow end—that's so it can connect to your upper arm.  _This_  arm," I pointed to my own injured appendage, "got bent so far that the hook actually poked a  _hole_  in the spot where it's supposed to hook into."

" _Ewww!_ " Liam gasped, his amber eyes dazzled with an intense mixture of intrigue and disgust.

Aidan could only stare at my elbow, his jaw slightly slackened with wonder. "You have a  _hole_  in your bone now?"

"Yeah," I promised, idly picking at the strap around my neck. "Maybe Mum will let you see it in the X-rays."

"That's so  _cool!_ "

~

News coverage for the cotillion "complication" was low, stunningly, though I probably should have expected it from the beginning. So many of the parents whose kids had attended were wealthy, powerful, and intensely concerned with their public images. Why would they want anything to do with ghosts, even if the connections were minimal? Relle's brief appearance on the scene had been the source of a lot of talk, though, especially when it concerned me and Camry, the "two girls who were hurt in the ghost attack." Once word got out that one of us had received burn damage, it became painfully obvious that Relle's integrity as a superhero was being put under the microscope all over again. From both the hospital bed and my own, I made sure to update my social media platforms with as many positive mentions of Relle as possible while I recounted what I "remembered" from the ordeal.

As promised, the police visited our family once again to try and gather more details about the night in question, but they had inadvertently given me plenty of time to cook up a better and more seamless story. I hadn't even considered the possibility that Mrs. Bosch might have given a story of her own—heck, even the boy I had danced with, Andy, could have been questioned! It took a lot of WeTuber charm and quick thinking, but I think I pulled off feeding the officers my freshly edited and perfected timeline.

Barely an hour after they had left, more or less content with the information they had gathered, Mum got a startling call from Camry's mom. She answered her phone quickly, dread apparent on her face even as she pressed the green button and held the device up to her ear. "Sadie, is everything alright?"

Seated at the kitchen's island, which was cluttered with preparations for dinner, I perked up and couldn't help but stare as Mum listened intently.

"You mean it? Oh, thank—of course, of course. We can bring whatever you need, just say the word. What about a whiteboard and markers?" The conversation didn't really make sense after that as Mum made a few notes on a legal pad and made suggestions. The supplies she mentioned all sounded unrelated: whiteboard markers, the blender from the Dowells' home, pillows, etc., until she ended the call and looked over at me.

"It sounds like Camry's recovery has taken a turn for the better," Mum announced, smiling wide. "She woke up a little while ago and seems coherent."

" _Really?_ " I exclaimed, shooting up and accidentally tipping over the bar stool. My grin felt like it stretched from ear to ear, but there was something else that made it shrink. "But... is there something else?"

"Well... whatever it was that burned her throat has damaged her vocal chords pretty badly. That's what Sadie said," Mum explained slowly, choosing her words carefully as she looked at me mournfully. "She hasn't been able to say a word yet, and it sounds like she'll be on an IV for quite a while."

That rush of cathartic relief drained away, leaving me with mixed emotions that were hard to pin down or separate from one another. Mum came over and pulled me into a warm hug, promising me all the while that we would skip school to go visit her in the hospital tomorrow. I silently nodded to that and hugged back with one arm, burying my face into her shoulder.

"Also... I think it's time that you two came clean to her parents. Don't you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAY I have done it yet again! Another chapter, here for your viewing pleasure! I know it's a little dull in comparison to what was going on before, but I think you'll like what I've got planned for the next chapter~
> 
> So, I would so appreciate hearing your thoughts in the comments down below, and a kudos always lifts my spirits! (heh) You guys are great, so thank you for your continued support!


	22. Stop, Rock, and Roll

It was hard to listen to the doctors as they talked on and on about the procedures they'd needed to do. As they rambled on, diving into topics like aftercare and the recovery processes I would have to endure, I stared down at my hands resting on my lap. My right palm was bandaged, as was my left wrist, and several other dressings marked bands of white across both arms all the way up. The gauze was tight—not in such a way that it cut off my circulation, but just enough to remind me of the rope pressing down in all of the same spots.

"We were curious about something, too," the middle-aged man said, his full mustache moving in tandem with his lips. To look like I had been paying attention, I occasionally zeroed in on his facial hair whenever my injuries didn't take the front seat of my focus. He had a metal clipboard with him, which he opened after popping the latch. I had seen plenty of charts already, but what he removed from inside next was entirely new.

The picture was standard size and printed on regular copy paper, so it didn't have that glossy sheen to make the image sharper. The doctor handed it to Mom first. She sat in a chair on my left while Dad had claimed the edge of my new hospital bed and kept a comforting hand on my shoulder. When Mom accepted the picture, she stared at it for a full five seconds in utter confusion and then immediately turned to look at me, a puzzled expression on her face. "Wait—" she murmured under her breath.

"That's pretty much the reaction the nurses and I had when we first saw it for ourselves," Dr. Corwell said in empathy. "We were wondering if any of you had any idea how something like that got on her tongue in the first place."

My tongue? The only thing I knew about my tongue was that it had been sprayed with some sort of numbing, moisture-resistant liquid bandage, making it feel as if it was wrapped in plastic. That was the first thing I had noticed when I woke up on account of the awful, chemical taste filling my mouth. Mom held the picture out to me, and I held it in such a way that Dad could see it, too.

It must have been taken in one of the operating rooms, because a tray of medical tools was just barely visible in the top corner by my cheek. The photo focused on my lower face, and one gloved hand was holding open my jaw while another used a rubber clamp to stretch my tongue out flat. Just off-center, seemingly stamped into the top layers of tissue, was an angry red mark with six projections: three skinny, three wide, and they alternated between each in a circular fashion. It almost looked like whatever had caused the burns had a raised center since the six marks tapered to nothing as they got closer to the middle, but a couple of odd squiggles filled the empty space with slender, curving lines that didn't have any kind of pattern whatsoever.

I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue and try to look at it in person, knowing full well that it wouldn't do me much good. Plus, if it still looked as awful as it did in the picture, I would be doing my parents and the doctor a huge favor by not putting it on display.

"Cam, sweetie, do you—do you remember anything like this happening?" Mom asked me hesitantly, grazing a butterfly-light touch on my cheek. I shook my head firmly the second I was able to tear my gaze off of the picture. Dad had yet to do so and took the photo in both hands, his brow furrowing at the grainy quality and oversaturated lighting.

"I can't even tell what it's supposed to look like," he mumbled half to himself and half to the rest of us, "if it's even  _supposed_  to look like anything at all. A flower, maybe?"

As Mom asked the doctor how severe the damage was to my mouth and throat, I was left with the horrible flashing memories of what I barely remembered after Kordelle had finished saying my full name. The flowers, blooming like a time lapse video set on fast forward, had occupied my last coherent thoughts before horrible pain had exploded all over me and I was writhing without moving, feeling without a body, and screaming without a mouth. That knot over my mouth...

"Camry?" Dad's fingers snapped quietly in front of my eyes and I started, jumping out of my own head and back into the present. "Honey, were you remembering something?"

I sniffed once and rubbed at my eye casually in the hopes that they wouldn't notice how shiny it was. Since I couldn't speak, and not for lack of trying, I could only shake my head again and look forlornly at my lap once more. Mom sent me a pitying look that I tried to ignore.

"Well, we'll want to keep you here a little while longer, Camry," Dr. Corwell continued as he accepted back the photograph. "The damage to your throat and vocal chords, even if it isn't life-threatening, is still pretty worrying. I'll be stopping by occasionally to check in on that."

"Of course," Mom consented, patting the back of my bandaged hand gingerly. "Thank you very much, Doctor. What should we be doing to help in the meantime?"

~~

I suppose it wasn't easy, but I think Mom somehow managed to get special permission to have at least her or Dad with me basically at all times, even after visiting hours were over. Dad stayed with me overnight after that initial briefing with my doctor, making my drab hospital room a little cozier with his presence alone. Then again, the extra pillows and cheesy sitcom DVDs did a fair share of easing the blandness, too.

Being "fed" through an IV was so strange, too. I constantly felt a little hungry—or at least I was feeling the urge to chew my own food and swallow it properly—but my body also knew it was okay on nutrients anyway. I tried to not be jealous of my dad's cafeteria-esque dinner tray.

That night, with Dad lightly snoring on a cot a few feet away, I drifted in and out of fitful dozing that only made the night stretch on for an eternity. Every little thing snapped me back into hyperalert mode: far-off noises of the hospital's night shift, the curtains rustling, Dad shifting positions in his sleep—even me turning the slightest bit under the covers sent me lurching back to reality. Knowing that the person who has it out for me could also read and control minds made it seem like he was always in my own, ready to appear out of the shadows just like he had when he first captured me. Lying there on my inclined bed, I stared into the darkness, waiting in anticipation for that first tremor of unease to tell me that he was there to finish the job.

I wonder if Saoirse and Mum had been waiting outside a while before visiting hours began the following day. The way they were at my door before the first minute of the hour was up seemed to suggest it. Dad and I looked up from our fourth game of tic tac toe when there was a gentle knock at the door. It swung open and two familiar faces peered in expectantly.

The instant our eyes met, I threw my hands up in the air, heedless of my IV taped into my left forearm, and nearly toppled backwards when Saoirse all but flew into me with a one-armed hug of her own. She clung to me so tightly, pressing my nose into the crook of her neck. I returned the gesture, awkwardly avoiding her sling and the limp arm hanging inside of it. It was probably weird for the adults in the room as we stayed that way for a long time, but they mercifully didn't comment. I waited to pull back until she did, then slid over to make room for her on the edge of the narrow bed.

Mum was next to get a hug in, and after she firmly planted a kiss on top of my head she held up a sparkly gift bag. "Here, we brought you a few things to try and make it a bit easier on you."

I silently gasped at the presents and so wished I could say something—anything—to tell them what I thought of everything as it was unpacked. One by one, they laid it all out, presenting the largest thing first since it stuck out the most. I beamed at the white board and immediately reached for the blue dry erase marker to write out  _thank you!!!!_  across it.

"And I'm letting you borrow my DS until you get out of here," Saoirse added, holding out the pink rectangle. My eyebrows rose dramatically; she knew how much I had always wanted one of my own even though Mom and Dad refused to buy one. Accepting it with one hand, I pretended to "steal" it by pulling out the neck of my hospital-issue shirt and starting to slide it under "stealthily." Saoirse giggled adorably, and my soul was saved. "I said  _borrow_ , silly."

The rest of the goodies included the book I had been yearning to finally finish, a few game cartridges for the DS, a handmade card from the entire Mahadeo family, and a tube of the oil I always used for my nails and cuticles. It pained me that I could only smile and write out my immense gratitude, but I had to make do with the limited tools I had. Mum settled into a chair next to my dad and asked, "So, how are you feeling? Any better than before?"

It felt so good to finally answer in more than nods and head shakes! I wrote my answer and turned the board so she could see.  _I'm a little sore and achy but it's not as bad as when I first woke up_.

Dad grimaced quite noticeably at the reminder of everything he'd seen. "I'll say. That was... terrifying."

_Sorry Dad :'(_

"No, no, honey. It's not your fault at all," he assured me, waving his hand in my direction as if to placate the idea. "We just... were not expecting that."

"Is that the, uh, coughing blood incident?" Mum asked in a low tone, and Dad nodded. "Ah. I can't even imagine."

The four of us made small talk for a little while, filling each other in on the details of my and Saoirse's ailments first and foremost before moving onto less guilting topics. Mum asked us if we had at least enjoyed the earlier parts of the cotillion, and we hesitantly admitted that it hadn't been quite as bad as we expected.  _The food was pretty good_ , I commented,  _but Mom makes it better_

When the conversation began to dwindle into comfortable silence, Mum stood and patted Dad on the shoulder. "So, is there anything good to eat downstairs?" The cafeteria was down there, and I knew that a chain coffee shop was nearby as well. "We skipped breakfast to get here as soon as possible."

"I guess I could go for some breakfast," he admitted, rising to his feet. "Saoirse, are you up to the task of guarding our Cammie while we're gone?"

She answered with a cheeky smile and a slight wiggle of her sling-arm. "I'm saluting you in spirit," she said.

"Excellent." He kissed my cheek and saluted to Saoirse on his way out. The door closed gently behind the two adults, and we were left to our own devices. Saoirse turned back around to look right at me, taking my left hand with hers.

"Are you okay? I mean,  _really?_ " she asked, her pink tourmaline eyes imploring as they bore into mine. "The knot, and—I don't know how I didn't notice it sooner, but then I cut it and the flower... Camry, I'm so,  _so_  sorry."

My lips parted ever so slightly with the yearning to speak, to comfort her with more than just nods and expressions. Oh, why did that stupid flower have to bloom in my mouth? Even another facial scar would have been better than this forced muteness. My right hand scribbled an answer on the white board and turned it so she could read.

_Why are you sorry? It's his fault, not yours_

She threaded the fingers of our left hands together a bit awkwardly and stared down at the entwined digits, her expression difficult to read. "I... I cut open the knots to free you, but the flowers exploded into dust every time. Cam, I... I think you can't talk because I didn't pull that flower out of your mouth before I cut it. I didn't realize—I should have, but..."

I shook my head quickly, drawing our clasped hands closer and leading her to lean forward a little, closing up some of the space between us. The marker squeaked softly as it quickly circled the last part of my message, putting emphasis on who  _really_  was to blame for everything. Then I added underneath it,  _it was an intense night. you couldn't foresee everything Seersh_

"Well..." she started to say as if to argue, but she let herself trail off indecisively. Our hands were still pressed together, palm to palm. Saoirse worried her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment, then let out a heavy sigh and met my eyes again. "Okay. Honestly, I'm... I'm just grateful that you're alive. We almost didn't make it in time."

_But you did_  I wrote with a bright smile.  _I definitely owe you what's left of my life now <3_

"Oh,  _please_  do not make those kinds of jokes right now," she groaned, the faintest trace of humor lifting a corner of her lips. "It's too soon. Too soon."

I silently laughed and conceded to that.  _How did you hurt your arm?_

"You don't remember?" Saoirse gasped, then relented as she reconsidered. "Oh, right. You were definitely very unconscious. Okay, so we were there in the clearing. Kordelle had this bow and arrow that was all white and glowing—it kinda reminded me of starlight, actually. Anyway, I didn't exactly see what happened, but he shouted something at Dude and then... Cam." The way she looked at me then with such childlike excitement sent a thrill of suspense through my chest. "I think you  _teleported_  us out of there."

I doubt my eyes could have gotten any wider than they were right then. My jaw dropped, hanging slack like a fool, and Saoirse failed to suppress a giggle at my astonished face. "Yeah! I mean it!"

_No_  I wrote.

" _Yes_ ," she insisted, giving my hand another squeeze. "We ended up on a floating acre. I don't really get how the rest happened, but I landed on the inside of the fence, and  _you_  landed in the branches of a tree..." I listened to the story with rapt attention, digesting every syllable like a starving soul. The part with Clockwork was something of a shock as well, though given the extent of his all-knowing powers, I quickly found myself able to believe that he had known exactly what would happen and intervened at the last second.

_Wish he could've saved your arm tho_  I scribbled down with a mild frown.

Saoirse shrugged nonchalantly at that. "It is what it is. It's a small price to pay."

_Still_  I insisted.

She let go of my hand to cup the right side of my face, cradling my cheek and letting her thumb linger over my triangular scar from six years ago. I could tell without needing a mirror that a blush was starting to form under her fingers. "Are you sure you're okay? You look... awful," she finally commented after peering into my eyes for a moment. "Like you haven't slept in forever."

I didn't bother writing an answer and opted to just wearily nod. "The memories kept you up?" she assumed, earning another nod from me. "Oh, Cam... If only we'd gotten there  _sooner_..."

_What about Dude?_  I wrote, baseless apprehension twisting like a knife in my gut.  _Is he okay?_

Saoirse retracted her hand and looked away, staring intently at the windowsill to my right. "I... I haven't heard from him since that night."

" _What?_ " I tried to exclaim on instinct, but the effort to use my ruined vocal chords sent a lingering flash of familiar agony through my throat. I grabbed it and winced, holding a withdrawn pose for several seconds as I tried to breathe through the pain. Saoirse asked me what was wrong, her pitch rising with borderline panic.

"Cam—should I get a doctor?" she pressed, already starting to rise from the edge of my bed. I shook my head quickly at that and let out a heavy breath, gradually relaxing my posture to show her that it was passing. "Oh... o-okay."

_Why didn't you text him?_  I asked in increasingly sloppy handwriting.  _He could be in trouble!_

"I-I know, I know," Saoirse murmured, looking down forlornly at the cell phone she had pulled from her pocket. "I just... His  _witch_  friends probably wouldn't have done anything to hurt him, you know?"

I had been in the middle of writing my rebuttal when my hands stilled of their own accord and the white board lay flat on top of my thighs. Oh, so Kordelle  _hadn't_  made that up when he made his voice sound like Dude's and said that he was a witch. I didn't want to believe anything that Kordelle said that night, but now that the same information was coming from Saoirse... Maybe it was just a little bit credible.

I used the side of my hand to wipe away what I had originally been writing and scribbled something else down.  _I want to hear it from him directly. He wouldn't lie to us on purpose._

"You're probably right, but..." she trailed off, again looking away from me and staring out the window. "It's so... so weird. I don't get why he kept it from us."

For the time being, I couldn't think of a response to that. Why did he keep something big like this a secret? Sure, I'm half-ghost, and witches are enemies to ghosts, but we wouldn't ever think that he was our enemy... right?

~

Mum didn't make Saoirse go to school at all during the day, which puzzled both of us immensely. Was this some rare gift for my spawning recovery? I didn't try to question it in case a reminder would spur Mum to make a more motherly call and drag my girlfriend back to her boring classes and awkward socializing. Turning up multiple days after the end of spring break and wearing a sling would undoubtedly dredge up a  _lot_  of unwanted questions.

Around midday, while Dad, Mum, and Saoirse took a little lunch break outside of my room and Dr. Corwell gave me a routine check-up for my external injuries, a gentle hiccup pulsed through my lungs and released a faint wisp of white smoke from my mouth. A ghost was nearby?  _Now?_

I couldn't let my heart rate spike with adrenaline-fueled dread while Dr. Corwell was so close by and checking me over. If he got suspicious at all, or if he wondered about the hint of smoky aroma drifting around me, he might stumble on something I didn't want him to know about! I shut my eyes and told myself that the ghost was probably weak and just passing by if the sense was so minimal this time. Besides, Dr. Corwell was on one of the last bandages and looked none the wiser. "Your burns are looking better already," he even commented amicably as he applied fresh gauze to the most distal injury on my left shin.

He stood and smiled at me, making the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes crinkle. "I'd expect you to recover soon, Camry, but you've been a brave patient so far. How is your throat feeling?"

I gave him a weak thumbs-up in the hopes that it would make him leave faster. Dr. Corwell nodded, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his white coat. "Alright, that's good to hear. We'll get a better look at how it's healing later tomorrow, but in the meantime, make sure you don't try to talk or swallow anything at all. We don't want you aggravating those burns."

He received a rapid nod and left after that, giving me the chance to bolt out of bed and grab the IV stand I was still attached to. I dragged it over to the window and threw open the curtains, half-expecting to see an unfriendly face staring in and looking to wreck my entire day. Instead, despite the window never being opened in the slightest, I found an entirely different sight waiting for me.

Small objects, mismatched and seemingly random, were lined up on the sill. Some were properly wrapped, such as the tiny box with a silken bow on top, while others were just presented as they were, like the glowing green lollipop in a cellophane wrapper. I stared for a little longer than I probably should have, gripping the curtain's edge in one hand and the IV stand's stainless steel shaft in the other. The thought of 'Where did these come from?' wandered through my brain, but I somehow already knew exactly who had put the gifts there, and my brain was just having trouble processing the concept.

_'No matter what quarrel there is between us, ghosts_ always _close ranks when a witch is nearby.'_

I heard the door open behind me and turned just enough to glance back over my shoulder. It was Saoirse with a trace of ranch dressing that she licked away from the corner of her lips; she sent me a puzzled look when she saw that I was out of bed. "Cam? Is everything okay?"

She stepped further inside and went to close the door behind her, but a hand on the other side stopped it just before it could latch. Whoever it was gently rapped on the door with their knuckles and said, "Hey, uh, can I come in?"

"Dude!" I silently mouthed, relief overshadowing all other emotions in my heart right then as I wheeled my IV stand behind me and hurried toward the door. Saoirse grabbed the knob and pulled it open, revealing our third trio member standing there with a barely-concealed look of apprehension on his face. His hair was shorter, the sides freshly shaved while his faux-hawk had been trimmed back a good couple of inches. By how he couldn't seem to find a good place to put his hands after he had knocked, he was definitely more than a little anxious to be there.

"Guys, I'm so—" he started to say, but I rushed forward and threw my arms around him without a moment's hesitation, cutting him off in the process. He froze for a split second, then gingerly pulled me closer and wrapped me up in a hug as well. "... Hey," he murmured, regret weighing down his usually energetic and lively tone.

"Hey," I so wanted to say back, but with my voice put on ice for the time being, it sufficed to tighten my hold on him and push my face into his shoulder. Dude was only a couple of inches taller than I, so I wasn't used to how much I had to bend down to do that.

I could sense Saoirse's presence at my back, providing a silent promise of protection. When we pulled apart, she discreetly rested her hand on my lower back. I didn't have to be a mind reader like Kordelle to tell that she wasn't exactly trusting of Dude right at that moment, and I couldn't really blame her.

"Guys, I'm  _so sorry_ ," he tried again, diverting his gaze between each of our faces as he talked and gesticulated. "I should've figured out what Kordelle was doing sooner, or... at the very least, I should've told you guys about me from the beginning."

We knew the drill by then: I grabbed Dude's hand and pulled him further into the room while Saoirse glanced up and down the hall before closing the door firmly. Safely ensconced in solitude, we were able to more or less talk freely. A matter as significant as our secret identities as ghost wranglers couldn't just be blurted out with the door open, now, could it?

Saoirse settled in next to me on the bed while Dude, sensing her current feelings toward him, remained standing and held his upper arm with his other hand. "So, uh... Wow, I don't even know where to start. Are you both okay, though?"

"I'll be fine eventually," Saoirse said with a brief glance down at her arm in its sling. "Camry, uh... can't talk anymore, so that's a thing."

"You  _what?_ " he gasped, turning his dark, opalescent eyes on me.

I signed "I'm okay," rapidly a few times in a weak attempt to wave away his concerns. The fact that I definitely looked sleep-deprived and like I'd been mugged recently didn't help at all, either. All of a sudden, I was unnervingly conscious of the IV where it was taped into my arm and dripping nutrients into my bloodstream.

"He... He did this to you," Dude whispered, his hand balled into a white-knuckled fist at his side.

"You mean Kordelle," Saoirse assumed. "Dude, what  _exactly_  is going on? You said that you're a witch but not much else that night. Since when was  _that_  a thing? Were you lying to us this whole time we've been friends or something?"

"No!" he immediately said, his eyes wide as they snapped out of a stormy trance. " _Dios_ , no. I only found out about...  _that_  a couple of weeks ago. Everything was happening so fast, and it was so much to take in, but I never meant to hide this from you. Kordelle... he tricked me into keeping quiet about all of this."

Dude eventually settled into a chair as he started from the beginning and explained everything, filling in the wide gaps of our limited knowledge. When he got to the part where his mother finally told him the truth about his lineage, I could tell that he had been wavering for a long time around telling us this particular part of the story. I reached out and put a supportive hand over his, then left it there until he was just about done catching us up on the missing details. It seemed to help him get through the more appalling parts of the tale.

"So, yeah," he concluded. "It's embarrassing to admit how easily he tricked me into not trusting you guys, but... I learned my lesson about that. I swear, I never thought anything like this would happen. It's definitely my fault, though."

I shook my head emphatically at that and quickly wrote down  _It's his fault, NOT yours!_  This was starting to feel awfully familiar...

"I know, but... I screwed up. Big time," Dude sheepishly admitted, the pain in his eyes as blatant as the piercing around his eyebrow. "Kordelle probably wouldn't have found you out if it wasn't for me."

_He has powers  
It was inevitable tbh_

He opened his mouth to try and counter that, but then thought better of it and frowned. "Okay, yeah, that's probably true. But... still. It freaks me out to think of what he almost did." A memory of some sort seemed to haunt him then, pulling his mind back to something we could only guess at. It was over in a second. "I wouldn't blame you guys if you didn't trust me after this."

"Stop," Saoirse said suddenly; it was the first time she had spoken since Dude began his explanation. "Dude, I... I still trust you, okay? We all made mistakes that led up to what happened. I don't think we really could have prevented much of it, anyway. Kordelle just sounds too crafty and powerful to stop, given what we  _barely_  knew at the time."

Since she had said pretty much all that I would have wanted to say, I drew an arrow that pointed towards her and held it up so they could both see it. Dude cracked a grateful smile and rose to hug us both, pulling our trio together once again. "Thanks, guys," he said softly, and we hugged back as best we could. Well,  _I_  hugged back; Saoirse's right arm was useless in its sling, so her left arm was awkwardly squished in the middle of the group hug and couldn't really reciprocate.

When we all drew back, I made a move to start writing something else down on my white board when another silent hiccup burst through me, releasing a slightly larger puff of very pale smoke into the air. We three intrepid heroes stared at it for a hot second before deflating in unison, sagging bonelessly where we sat or stood. I was back at the window a second later, pulling aside the curtain to scope out the outside world, when I was once again met with what looked like a false alarm.

"What gives?" my face probably said for me just fine with a pout. The presents were still undisturbed on the windowsill for the time being, but something else had wedged itself in between the lollipop and the metallic, steampunk-esque box. It was a little green stone, polished smooth and glowing much brighter than the candy. Its uneven coloring reminded me a little of malachite. A note was wedged underneath it, pinned down and slightly wrinkled by the roughly quarter-sized pebble. Saoirse and Dude joined me at the window to peer over my shoulders at the sight.

"Wait, when did  _these_  get here?" Saoirse asked, pointing a slender, piano player's index finger at the array of trinkets and treasures. Dude hesitantly poked at the box covered in gears and weathered metal, but nothing happened.

I could only shrug in answer and chose to scoop up the rock first since it seemed set apart from all of the other objects. Maybe I was imagining it, but it was  _definitely_  new to the scene. The flimsy paper crinkled when I picked it up by one corner and unfolded it once. My lips moved silently as I read the messy but sparkly purple handwriting.

_Eat this later and we're even._

_-Shasta_

"Lemme see that," Dude said as he took the note out of my hands without invitation and read it over for himself. "'Eat this later?' She wants you to eat a  _rock?_ "

"That seems ill-advised," Saoirse muttered, picking up the lollipop and holding it up to the sunlight.

I weighed the rock in my hand, noting how light it was despite looking and feeling very solid. What's more, it felt like it had been stuck in a refrigerator for a few hours. A tiny part of me deep inside my core was calling out to it, and with a gasp I felt the stone call  _back_. Its glow pulsed faintly, even in the midday sun streaming through the window. Before I could even think twice about what I was doing, I pressed it down on my scarred tongue and closed my lips around it.

Dude jumped and Saoirse stared at me, incredulous and just a tad bit exasperated. "Did you just put that in your  _mouth?_ " she demanded. " _Camry!_ "

" _Why_  did you—we should've made sure what it was  _before_  you did that!" Dude exclaimed, wrinkling the note even further in his hand.

I didn't answer—I mean, I  _couldn't_. I shrugged again, a slightly cheeky smile on my face. Well, the rock actually tasted pretty okay, like citrus and a little bit of salt. That undertone of copper could have been done without, though.

"Spit it out," Saoirse insisted. "You don't know what it'll do to you!"

Okay, so  _maybe_  that had been a stupidly impulsive decision. I brought my hand up to take it off of my tongue, but before I could even open my mouth I flinched and stiffened, eyes wide and staring at nothing. The stone—it had suddenly dissolved into freezing cold liquid! I spat some of it out into my palm, but not before most of it slipped down my throat and started to coat the burned lining. It actually felt... really nice. The pain was being entirely taken away for the first time since I had woken up.

"What the—?" Dude started to say. "Cam? Are you okay? What's going on?"

I relaxed my shoulders a little and calmly looked at each of their worried faces, a strangely foreign sort of peace leaving me unaffected by their anxiety. I so wanted to say that I was okay, to tell them that it didn't do much of anything at all, but at that exact second I felt a familiar shift in my gut. A circle of orange-tinted white light exploded into existence around my middle and immediately changed me into Relle Phantom before I could stop it! My two best friends leaned away from me, their eyes wide in unison as they tried to comprehend why I had spontaneously transformed.

And oh man, where do I even  _start_  with that? My blood blossom burns were still present but in Technicolor 1080p clarity, but right before all of our eyes they started to knit themselves back together and respawn whatever flesh had been scorched away. Soon, and by 'soon' I mean in a manner of about fifteen seconds, every last ounce of pain was gone and all that was left behind were small, pale scars and the tears on my uniform to mark their fleeting existences—and even then, the rips in my clothes were repairing themselves, too!

"Uhhhh—!" Dude intoned numbly as he both stared and tried not to stare, which was impossible to accomplish.

One other detail caught my attention as I continued to look down at myself: the transparent, spider-silk armor shirt now had what almost looked like embroidered vines twisting from the hem to the neck in a path that closely marked where the blood blossom rope had laid over the shirt itself. I grabbed the bottom of the shirt and lifted it closer to my face, where I squinted at the intricate pattern. Actually... it looked like there were little six-petal flowers woven into the new design.

'Oh, come  _on_ ' I griped silently, letting go of the hem. 'Motherfucking  _asphodel?_   _Really?_ '

" _Uhhhh_ —!" Dude repeated more insistently this time. Had he blinked even once since I'd transformed?

Saoirse sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed my arm. "Change back! What if someone sees you?"

I nodded and focused intently, calling on that familiar sensation of yanking my humanity back into existence. The light reappeared and shifted me back into a blonde girl dressed in a hospital-issue shirt and sweatpants. I stared at my hand, slimy with what little there was left of that liquefied rock. Every cell in my body felt recharged and tingly with power from out of  _nowhere_.

"Cam, what was that all about?" Saoirse asked, slowly resting her hand on my back and leaning down to better look at my face. I could only shake my head, still fixated on the green goop coagulating on my skin. "Maybe... we should sit down, or something."

The IV was still taped into my arm, so I was stuck wheeling it back toward my bed. Dude reached out to help me move it, but when his hand brushed against mine on the metal stand he jerked back and yelped, shaking his hand out like he had just been shocked. I didn't even think about it: I reached out to him and said, "Sorry!" automatically, my stomach lurching with horror at the idea that I had just hurt him.

Nobody moved. No one said a word. Under the stares of my two best friends, I could feel my entire body flushing with embarrassment. Was it just me, or was the room getting warmer?

"Did... Did you just  _talk?_ " Dude asked, his eyes searching my face intently.

"I-I... did?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter is getting really long, so I think I'll end it here for now. Stay tuned for the final resolution chapters, guys! I've got a few excellent epilogues planned and I would hate for you to miss out on them. Thanks for your support, and be sure to comment down below! 
> 
> Also... Camry, why must you put random unidentified things in your mouth so impulsively? *sigh*


	23. Show, Don't Tell

We were paralyzed with shock, unable to say anything—it was almost as if Kordelle had scorched away all of our vocal chords. That was no longer the case for any one of us, though, and I cleared my throat while touching a hand to my lower lip. "Uh—What?"

That broke the spell, and Saoirse gasped with a hand over her mouth. Dude was beaming from ear to ear while keeping his distance. If an accidental brushing of our hands had brought such a loud yelp out of him, who was to say what a full-blown hug would do? I hadn't felt a thing, but his nature as a witch was technically anathema to mine as a half-ghost.

" _What_  the  _f_ —?" I started to say, but hurried footsteps just beyond the door buttoned my lips faster than an ectoblast zinging through the air. I lunged for the bed as Dude yanked the curtains closed to hide the trinkets we had yet to thoroughly assess. Saoirse grabbed the IV stand and followed after me with it so I could throw the covers back over my legs.

The door was shouldered open by a pair of adults in the next second; it was Dad and Mum! They were holding cups of coffee from that shop just down the street, and a delicious aroma wafted up from the pastry bags dangling from their fingers. "Hey, girls, how're—?" Dad started to ask, but the unexpected presence of a third teenager cut off his train of thought abruptly. "Oh, Dude—hi! When did you get here?"

Dude smiled sheepishly and waved. "Hey, Mr. Mason and Mum. I just got here."

"Good thing I bought an extra bagel," Mum commented. "Would you like one?"

"... Yes, please," he admitted, accepting the crinkly brown bag she held out. As he took it, I watched Mum's eyes widen at the sight of a dark purplish mark on his pinky and ring fingers—the same fingers that had brushed up against mine.

"How did that happen?" Mum blurted out, her citrine eyes boring into exactly what she was talking about. Dude frowned a little and held his hand up, experimentally flexing those digits.

"Uh... Oh! I banged my hand into the doorframe on my way to school," he laughed awkwardly before pulling out the still-warm bagel. "I totally forgot about that, ha."

"Anything else exciting happen while we were out?" Dad asked, pecking the top of my head and settling down into one of the chairs.

I quickly shook my head, and Saoirse mirrored me. "Nothing to report this time," she lied evenly. 

~

After a little bit of small talk that morphed rather quickly into a mild parental scolding of Dude's choice to skip afternoon classes, Dad got a call from one of his employers and left the room to take it out in the hall. He excused himself, leaving Mum to "guard" the three of us until he finished up. "This should only take a second," he promised.

As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, my mind was made up. "Mum, we need your help," I groaned, reaching a dramatic hand out to her and flopping forward on the bed. Her eyes went as wide as saucers for all of three seconds and I saw her muscles tense up, but she thankfully didn't jump or shout.

"You... can talk?" she murmured.

I nodded. "Yeah, but only as of, like, ten minutes ago. I  _swear_  I wasn't just faking it."

"Is it a ghostly thing?" she asked, and again I nodded. "Okay, then fill me in with the details later. What else has been fixed for you besides your voice?"

" _Everything_ ," Saoirse jumped in. "All of her wounds are gone under the bandages. The doctors are going to know something's up as soon as they come back for another check-in!"

"What the hell is happening right now," I just barely heard Dude wheeze as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the three of us. Oh, right, he didn't know that Mum knew pretty much everything. Oops.

Mum's hand wandered up to cup her chin, and she looked quickly among me, Saoirse, the floor, and the door. Through its narrow window, we could see the back of my dad's left shoulder as he talked on his cell phone, completely unaware of our conversation for the time being. "Alright, alright... We'll need to get you out of here before your next check-up, then—that means no later than tonight. That killer fever made your case a high-profile one, so the doctors are going to want to monitor you for a while longer. Plus, the police will want to take your statement of what happened. Did you two get your stories straight yet?"

"Not yet," Saoirse answered.

"Do that soon. I have an idea, but it may not work, so be prepared for that."

"What're you going to do?" I asked, absolutely dying to know what kind of plan she had cooked up in practically no time at all.

"Something risky, but I think it just might work," Mum said, rising from her seat and approaching my bedside. I sat up a little more and was surprised to have her put a hand on my shoulder. "Do you remember what I said when I told you that I knew everything?"

"Uh... No?" I said, looking up into her warm autumnal eyes.

"I said that you should tell your parents what's going on after the cotillion was over," she reminded me gently, removing her hand from my shoulder and taking out her phone. "It's over now, so I think it's time. It's not right to keep them in the dark like this, not after what they went through."

I stared, lips barely parted and mouth bone-dry. Oh, right... I had more or less promised that I would do that, hadn't I? My gaze fell to the useless bandages on my arms and hands. "... You're right, Mum."

I wanted to say a little more, although what I would have said wasn't quite a fully formed thought at that point. The door opened again and Dad walked in, pocketing his cell and forcing me to clam up in the process. "Well, the trip to the Sahara fell through, but National Geographic wants to meet to talk about a different trip for the end of next month," he sighed. "They want me over there right away."

I reached for the nearly-forgotten whiteboard and scribbled quickly with the blue marker, making soft squeaking sounds as I blazed through my message.  _I'll be alright if you have to go Dad :)_

"I'm sure you will be, sweetie," he said. "Mom'll be here to stay with you in about an hour. Dude, do you want a ride back to school, or are you planning on playing hookie for the rest of the day?"

Dude shrugged with both hands held flat in the air. "For once, I actually don't need to go over the stuff in my math class. My mom is probably going to get worried soon, though."

"We should probably think about leaving, too, Saoirse," Mum announced as she stowed her phone away in a pocket of her floor-length skirt. She had been rapidly texting up until that moment. "Let's let Camry rest up, yeah?"

"Awww," she grumbled, sticking her lower lip out a little in an adorable pout. I so wanted to echo her groaning, but I sufficed with taking her hand in both of mine and offering a reassuring smile. She squeezed me back and hugged me around the shoulders, discreetly pecking me on the cheek before pulling back. "I'll see you soon, Cam."

"Yeah, feel better soon," Dude said as he started to follow my dad out of the room. I waved goodbye to them all, smiling up until a second after the door closed behind Mum. She gave me a subtle wink on her way out, leaving me to wonder yet again about her plan to get me out of the hospital by this evening.

There had been so many smiling, loving faces surrounding me that their absence hit me like a solid punch to the sternum. The happy look on my face fell and I dropped my hand to my lap. Staring down at my ten fingers and the bandages I no longer needed to wear, a forlorn sigh escaped from between my lips.

"Is he  _finally_  gone?"

I yelped at the new voice that suddenly spoke up from the window; when my eyes darted over to look, I could see Shasta's head poking into the room, phasing through the glass and drawn curtains in the process. But, wait—I hadn't gotten another hiccup from my ghost sense!

"H-Have you been there the whole time?" I gasped, a palm pressing down over my racing heart.

"As if I would let a witch know where I am," she explained, frowning at the closed door. "But what the hell were you thinking? Didn't my note say to eat that ectoplasm  _later?_ "

Laughing a couple of notes, I awkwardly scratched the back of my neck. "I mean... it  _did_ , but..."

"Jeez," she groaned, rolling her eyes as she drifted all the way into the room and reformed her legs to stand. She crossed her arms while leaning against the wall next to the window. "And after I even bothered to consider what the humans would think is weird."

"Yeah... why did you do that for me?" I had to ask. The question was nagging at the back of my brain incessantly—it was so out of character for any of my ghostly enemies to show so much compassion or generosity, and all of a sudden they were leaving gifts for me! "And what's all that on the sill?"

Shasta glanced at the glimpse of the sill her entry had allowed her, then looked back at my confused face. "Look, it's... it's not like we're all suddenly  _friends_  or anything. What you did that night was huge for everyone in the ghost community. Thanks to you and your friend, we know how to fight that spell now."

She sucked in a long breath, then let it out in one big, frosty whoosh. "Getting caught by a witch is a sentence worse than any kind of death. No ghost  _ever_  comes back from it. But you somehow managed to change that, so... thank you."

I could only stare and hope my jaw hadn't gone slack. Shasta's purple complexion deepened across her face, and she quickly averted her gaze to the windowsill. " _Anyway_ , the others wanted to give you gifts as tokens of their appreciation. They're not traps, I promise."

"That's... really sweet," I commented, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed and taking my IV stand closer to her. "Thank you so much, Shasta. I don't know what I would've done without all your help."

"Well, we're even now, so don't expect much like this again," she answered, turning toward the window to leave. I didn't blame her for not wanting to stick around. Before shifting her legs into a wispy tail, though, she gave me a sidelong glance over her shoulder. "I guess you were kinda right about your friend, but I still don't trust him. If... If you need to, I dunno, get away from this world for a while... my lair has stellar bean bag chairs."

Shasta launched out of the room then, making the curtains billow and twist even as she technically never touched them on her way out. I held down the hem of my shirt and beamed in the direction in which she had disappeared. That conversation hadn't gone at all like how I would have imagined it to go, but I could tell her thoughts had been genuine. 'I never really expected to make a friend out of her' I thought, still beaming as I threw the curtains open and carefully piled the presents into my arms. It didn't sound like I would be at the hospital for much longer, and there was no way I wanted to leave the tokens behind.

Besides, who  _wouldn't_  be curious to look at everything more closely? All of a sudden, my day felt more like Christmas than I ever could have hoped! My voice was back, my body had healed up perfectly, and I had little presents to 'unwrap.' I set each item down carefully in an arc before me, and I plopped down with crossed legs to get started. Just by looking carefully at everything, I could make a pretty accurate guess as to who had given me what.

First up was the glowing lollipop, bright acid-green and wrapped in cellophane, that probably came from Bopper the circus clown. A little silver bow kept the packaging on over the candy. I decided to save it for later, just in case. If it was at all like the stone Shasta had given me, then I didn't need to be forced back into Relle while I was still interned at the hospital.

Next, I picked up an eight-inch long, slender stick of metal that ended with a razor-sharp point at one end and a rather intricate tangle of metal at the other. The shaft of the veritable mini-sword was oddly patterned with concentric shapes that made my eyes hurt if I stared for too long. Seriously, it was like I was looking at one of those online eye tests that made you see all sorts of different colors without there being any colors to begin with! Upon further exploration, I discovered that the mess of metal on the other end was actually a slightly guarded grip that I could slip my pointer and middle fingers into to hold onto the weapon like it was a dagger. "Whoa, Izora..." I murmured, sliding my right hand into place and swinging the gigantic pin around. The whooshing noises it made were  _so_  satisfying!

The steampunk box could only have been from Lord Batron, and I still couldn't help but flinch as I slid aside the latch and lifted the lid the tiniest bit. When nothing happened, I cautiously opened it the rest of the way and was greeted by a sweet, slow melody. I could see gears ticking against one another inside the lid, which left room for little things to be placed inside without disturbing the mechanisms that made the music. A pile of silver links lay within, and when I lifted them out by one end I discovered that its length was easily four feet, probably longer. They jingled heavily, in direct contrast with the music box's tune, and were spotted with rust in a couple of places. "So... Kairomir?" I guessed. Something told me that this had once been attached to a larger piece of chainmail.

I frowned pensively at it, my brain turning over ideas for what I could use a gift like this for, and decided that if I could find something to attach the ends together, I could wear it as a doubled-over necklace. It went back in the box, which I closed quickly to cut off the music before it could attract attention from the hospital staff. After that was taken care of, I turned my eyes to the rectangular hand mirror set in an ornate frame depicting all sorts of animals: a tiger, a bear, a little family of mice, a cat, a dog, an owl, a snake, and the profile of an elephant were the ones I picked out from around the glass. When my gaze glanced over my reflection, though, I was met with the sight of eyes the color of sphalerite and a scarred face framed with glowing blue hair. I could see my  _ghost_  form!

The last two gifts were a little less extravagant but interesting in their own ways. Russolo the Unchained had given me a deck of cards that shuffled themselves when I pressed down on the center of the topmost card—an unspoken acknowledgement of the fact that I couldn't shuffle cards to save my own life. Mantua's offering was a latched case with six tiny needles and a spool of luminous white thread inside. The instant I touched the thread with my bare skin, a sudden ache on the side of my neck flared up, and I clapped a hand over the area. "Urgh..." I grumbled, wondering what the hell could have made my bite from Arachne act up like—"... Oh.  _Oh_ , this is—oh my gosh. This is thread from  _Arachne?_ " I squealed, picking up the entire sewing kit and cradling it reverently in the palms of my hands.

I could remember just how ecstatic Madison had been to even briefly get her hands on this fabled string, so to think that Mantua was willing to part with some of her own stash was just... incredible. Not only that, but by putting it in a sewing kit, it seemed like she was implying that I could maintain my silk armor shirt. It never tore or took any damage from my fights, but that didn't mean it never would.

'Everyone, thank you so much for all of this' I thought, idly running a finger across the miniature sword's shaft and then wincing when it nicked me. Before blood could seep through the slice, little green squiggles started to knit the cut back together before sealing it up completely with a tiny spark of light. I beamed at it; Shasta's gift must have some lingering aftereffects. I definitely did feel more powerful, not to mention more energized, than usual.

I knew it would take nothing short of a miracle to make genuine friends and allies out of the ghosts in the Ghost Zone, but this was definitely a step in the right direction.

~~

I don't know how Mum managed to do it, but no less than an hour after she left with all the others, Mom was receiving a packet of release papers to sign and a referral to a vocal chord rehabilitation specialist stationed up in Canada. As confused as she was about the sudden change in plans, I mutely encouraged her that this was what I wanted to do.

_I'll get my voice back no matter what_  I wrote with determination on my whiteboard.

"Well... as long as we can get you transferred to a local clinic for your other burns while we're up there, I would love for you to get started as soon as possible on vocal rehab," she agreed, flipping to the last page and scribbling her signature on the dotted line. "Still, it seems... sudden."

_Maybe I'm just doing better than they expected_  I reasoned cautiously.  _The fever probably scared the doctors yknow?_

"Sure... maybe that's it."

The papers went into official hands, and by four o' clock that very same afternoon I was dressed in my own clothes, holding a bag with all of my things, and riding shotgun next to Mom on our way back home. "Ellie had an idea for a little party before you left for Canada," Mom piped up when we were stopped at a red light. "I know you won't be able to eat anything solid, sweetie, but what do you think about that? We can invite the Hinojosas over, too."

Actual words were so close to leaving my mouth that I had to feign a silent cough in order to cover my near slip-up. Instead, I nodded rapidly and grinned, giving her a chipper thumbs-up for good measure. "Okay, great," Mom agreed, also smiling at the prospect of cooking something for a get-together and getting to spend time with friends and family alike. If anything, my mom loves to be a hostess, priding herself on her intuitive ability to tailor everything to her guests' preferences with very little warning.

I tried to get Mom to let me help her prepare, but she insisted that I relax while she worked in the kitchen. Dad, just done with talking to his commissioners about the upcoming photography expedition, was grabbing groceries on his way home so there would be enough to feed three entire families. Finding something to do in the meantime proved to be a bit of a challenge; I had to keep up the guise of being injured, so anything active was out of the question. Saoirse had already given me a bit of the scoop for what the city thought of Relle Phantom's most recent scandal, and I knew that getting on any social media would remind me of the scathing comments and criticisms concerning "those two poor girls Relle  _barely_  saved." After taking a quick shower, that just left me with video games or books, so I decided to hop onto player one's controller and start kicking CPU butt in a story-based fantasy game while my own body temperature dried my hair. I was just about to run out of hit points and have to start all the way back from my last save point  _again_  when there was an energetic knocking at the door. I paused the game and scurried over to answer it.

"Wooooo!" Dude cheered, throwing his hands up in the air as soon as we saw each other. I grinned and mimicked his gesture, then stepped aside to let him, his sister, and his mother in. "Mrs. Sadie, we're here!"

"Hello, hello!" Mom called out over the sound of the mixer's whirring. "Make yourselves at home!"

"I heard all about your voice, hijita," Ms. Maria said sympathetically as she took my hand and patted it a couple of times. "Are you feeling any better?"

I nodded, still wishing I could come right out and assure her that I didn't really need to be worried about for the time being. Still, I couldn't spoil the surprise until after dinner; I'd made a promise to myself that I would wait until everyone was feeling full and happy before I dropped the bomb on them all.

Ariadna signed a greeting to me and I answered, using what Dude had taught me to compliment how she had done up her long, rich brown hair. She thanked me, and we walked to the living room to find Dude already setting up players two and three. "You ready to make computers cry?" he challenged, and with an unwavering fist pump I launched right back into my quest, this time with Dude and Ariadna to back me up.  _Finally_ , actual progress was being made!

Some twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang and I paused the game once more to let the Mahadeos in. Aidan and Liam almost immediately launched into a volley of questions that I couldn't answer with a simple yes or no head shake, but Mum advised them not to pester and Saoirse pointed out that there were video games in the living room. They scrambled over each other to go see, leaving the rest of the family in the foyer with me. Mum gave me a gentle hug and Mr. Mahadeo also asked if I was doing better, to which I nodded as well. They then went further into the house to go see my mom. Stashed away by ourselves in the foyer, where only a sliver of a glimpse to the living room was visible, we stole a brief kiss from each other.

"Hey," Saoirse whispered, smoothing back the bangs that were starting to grow a little too long for my liking.

"Hey," I echoed, leaning into an embrace we hadn't dared to deepen under questioning eyes. "You're gonna have to tell me later exactly how Mum managed to get me out of the hospital so fast."

"Honestly? I'm not really sure myself," she admitted with a mirthful smile. "I tried to ask, but she just mentioned something about calling in a favor. The details are a mystery."

"We'll find out eventually, I'm sure," I murmured, taking her by her usable hand and leading her into the living room before anyone could start to wonder why we were taking so long in the foyer. Aidan and Liam were in on the video game by then, which left no more room for players with Dude and Ari still questing. Dude tried to offer me his controller, but I declined and assured him through sign language that it was fine.

Y'know, with or without my voice, becoming as fluent as possible in sign language was starting to look more and more appealing by the minute. I almost wanted to ask if we could try to make the brief lessons more frequent and challenging, but that was a topic best saved for later. For the time being, I had to focus on how I would tell all the parents the truth about what I'd been doing for the last few months.

Dad returned bearing two armfuls of groceries to a more-than-full house, and not long after, it was time to eat. I technically wasn't supposed to eat solid food according to the doctors, but looking at the feast Mom had prepared caused me to briefly rethink my plan of waiting until after dinner to start talking. That would save me from eating a blended milkshake version of dinner, right?

'No, no, stick to the plan' I reminded myself, settling into a spot on the couch with a straw stabbed into a tall glass of pulverized chicken, fettucine, and alfredo. I took an experimental sip and tried not to grimace; a warm shake? The  _weirdest_  texture, which was saying something considering I had eaten a cold rock that turned into liquid only hours ago. At least the pain from my tongue's scar had evaporated after encountering that ectoplasmic stone, leaving me freed up to ingest without issue.

Comfortably wedged in between Dude and Saoirse on the couch, I quietly sucked on my shake and watched the adults make conversation while they polished off their plates. Ariadna was also silent, eating with gusto on one end of the coffee table and signing to her brother every so often to ask what the adults were talking about. Liam and Aidan had been relegated to the card table Dad set up specifically for them, as they were just a little too young to be trusted not to spill on the carpet.

All was going well, but in between paying attention to the adults and scribbling conversation with my friends, my brain struggled over the different ways I would reveal my biggest secret to everyone. Would I just start to talk like nothing had ever happened?

No, that would be too startling. Cutlery could go flying. Mass destruction.

I could switch to Relle silently and wait for someone to notice?

Again, too much all at once. Cutlery could go flying. Mass destruction.

I could use my whiteboard to kinda break the ice and see where that would take the conversation? Sure, but what  _exactly_  would I say? I had to practice it in my head as many times as possible or everything would go horribly wrong. Cutlery could go flying. Mass destruction.

' _Gah!_ ' I groaned internally, tugging at a strand of hair attached near my temple. This was so hard to think about! I don't want to admit to everything I've been doing as Relle—that would be so much for Mom and Dad to take in all at once!

"You good?" Dude whispered as he nudged my arm with his elbow. I pouted and rested my chin in my hand, leaning forward dejectedly. "So... not so good."

"I think I know why," Saoirse murmured to the both of us. "Want me to get the ball rolling?"

I sat up a little straighter and pursed my lips to the side in thought, rhythmically tapping both indexes on my kneecaps. Then I shook my head and reached for the whiteboard resting on the coffee table, where I had set it down after losing my third game of tic-tac-toe to my girlfriend. The marker's squeaking against the smooth surface of the board brought something of a lull to the adults' conversation, especially from Mum, who had been in the middle of a sentence when she glanced over and must have seen the intense expression on my face. This had all been her idea, so there was no doubt that she knew exactly what was coming. At their card table behind us, Liam and Aidan whispered to each other conspiratorially, like spies watching a covert operation.

When my message was written out, I flipped the board around and waved to get the grown-ups' attention.  _What do you think of Relle Phantom?_

"Why do you ask that, honey?" Mom inquired before taking a short sip of her pink lemonade. Her glass made a sharp clinking sound against the tabletop when she set it back down. Beside me, Dude discreetly translated everything into sign language for Ariadna's benefit.

I didn't want to erase my question, so I shrugged nonchalantly and tried to gesture in a "go on" kind of way. "Please just humor me" was what I was trying to convey.

"Well... I'm not sure  _what_  to think of her right now," Dad spoke up. "You two say she rescued you, but you both ended up getting hurt pretty badly."

That reminder was a punch to the gut, and I tried not to wilt visibly. If I could go back and try to do better at keeping Saoirse from getting hurt, I wouldn't hesitate for even a millisecond.

"Even so," Mum interjected, using a twinge of authority to make herself heard loud and clear, "she does a great job protecting the city from ghosts. We're lucky to have her here, especially to save our children from danger."

"It can't always be a perfect rescue," Maria added, holding her own glass in both hands and running her thumb back and forth over a section of the smooth rim. "Relle looks so young, even for a ghost."

"That's true..." Dad agreed, trailing off pensively. What was he thinking of that would make him look so intense?

Mason Mahadeo placed his empty plate on the table as he spoke. "Ghosts are... interesting, to say the least. I don't know exactly what my opinion of them is, but I think Relle is certainly different from the rest. I think she does have the best interests of this city and its people at heart."

"She totally does!" Saoirse exclaimed, throwing her left arm in the air and brushing against me as she did so. "She's a superhero, you know? We'd be in so much trouble without her."

Dude pointed at Saoirse emphatically to show he agreed. "All of that, for sure. And when I met her, I could tell she wasn't like the other ghosts at all."

By then I could tell without seeing that I was flushing bright red and bordering the point where I would start to turn a little bit orange from the sheer heat of embarrassment. I had to hurry up and get these beans spilled before I left scorch marks in the couch! The side of my fist wiped away the first question to make room for a new one:  _Okay, so can I tell you all a secret?_

"Go ahead, sweetie," Mom said in a coaxing manner. "You can tell us anything."

I sucked in a deep breath and, after a second to let my nerves harden, set the whiteboard with the writing face-down on my lap. I capped the marker and set that down, too.

"Okay, so it's technically  _two_  secrets."

" _What?_ " Mom shrieked, reeling back in her seat on the bigger couch. Mum put a hand out to steady the plate full of utensils on my mom's lap so it didn't tip over. Maria, unfortunately, had been taking a sip of her drink and coughed when I spoke aloud; Ariadna patted her back gently a couple of times, aware of the situation but not nearly as affected by my sudden speaking. Dad and Mason both stared silently, jaws slack and eyes wider than I had ever seen them. Aidan gasped, and both twins pushed their chairs out to rush over to the adults so they could see everything for themselves.

My stomach lurched and I felt like hiding under a blanket to get away from all of their jeweled eyes boring questioning holes into me and my charade of lies. Saoirse's arm went around my shoulders and Dude shuffled closer, both offering comfort in closer quarters. As much as I hated to feel trapped, knowing it was the two of them right then had the opposite effect and actually eased some of my anxiety.

"You... can  _talk_ ," Dad noted in a whispery voice. With how stunned the crowd was, no one had any trouble hearing him.

"... Yeah," I admitted. "Only since earlier today, though. One of the ghosts gave me something that healed my injuries."

In a T-shirt, my arms were fully capable of showing the stretches of gauze looping around them. I reached for one on my left forearm and unwound it completey, then pointed to where the burn mark should have been. Only the faintest of white scars marked its existence. "So... I'm all better," I sang awkwardly in a weak attempt to alleviate the oppressively stunned mood in the room.

"But... But  _why?_ " Mason asked me, leaning forward and over the edge of the coffee table. "Why would a ghost help give you your voice back?"

"Was it Relle?" Maria added quickly.

"Let her explain," Mum advised gently, making placating gestures with one hand while she set my mom's plate down on the table.

"No, it... it wasn't Relle. See, that's kind of my other secret," I began again, threading my fingers together and pressing them against my sternum. "And I feel awful for keeping it from all of you, but I didn't want to worry anybody about it. We were doing just fine, until... whatever. Look, I'll just show you."

But, out of the ingrained habit of not letting anyone know my secret, I hesitated, and instead spent a moment taking in the expressions on everyone's faces. Mom was the epitome of shocked, her posture tense and her mind racing. Dad and Maria were in similar versions of the same state, staring at me expectantly while they didn't quite know what to think. Mason, as he often did, had fallen back on the perpetually inquisitive nature that had helped him find his dream job in Bailey Lake's public university; he covered his mouth with one hand, brow low over his eyes as he pondered the many possibilities for my elusive and intriguing secret. Aidan and Liam were hanging off of their father and staring at me with wide, childish eyes that hid wild imaginations in their depths.

And then there was Mum, so confident in her long-known information that she even casually took a sip of her lemonade and smiled at me. I could tell she was mentally willing me to go ahead and show them all exactly what I was talking about.

Well, I guess that made it time for show and tell. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a little side note, when Camry was appraising Izora's gift, I was trying to describe the damascened blade in a way that someone who wasn't familiar with the material would. So yes, that hat pin is a damascened blade, which makes it ridiculously strong and a powerful weapon. The art of making it has been lost to the ages, so it's a very rare and valuable metal. 
> 
> I think I'll leave the reactions of the parents up to your imaginations this time, because I'm ready to move on already ^_^' Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you all in the next chapter!
> 
> Comments are always super appreciated!!


	24. Epilogue: Brotherswing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note before we begin: each little scene/vine/take described in this chapter will be separated by virtue of full line spacing, so if the dialogue is only half of a line apart then you'll know it's still supposed to be the same shot or vine. It'll make sense, don't worry! I'm not used to writing out descriptions for filming, so this may be a little strange or awkward ^_^' Anyway, enjoy!

To make a long story somewhat shorter, it took quite an adjustment period to help bring any sense of normalcy back to the inner circle of the Relle Phantom secret. The first time Camry used her bare hands to catch a falling pan straight off the burning stove, her mother couldn't decide if the act itself or Camry's blasé response to it startled her more. Knowing this, Cam did her best to try and tone down any and all use of her powers in her parents' presence. Like with Mum, they also became a more active force in her ghostly existence: whether it was via text messages asking if she was alright or learning how to dress and treat minor wounds, their help became incredibly useful as the battles between Relle and her enemies began to grow much more, well,  _heated_.

That didn't mean everything was all fine and dandy, though. Like most good parents, Sadie and Mason made it abundantly clear that they were afraid for their daughter whenever she went off to fight. Coming home with bruises, scrapes, and cuts at least twice a week did little to lessen their fretting. Now they knew  _exactly_  why Camry was showing up on their front step while wearing evidence of a fight on her skin. Still, she had to admit that it was a little bit nice to not have to sneak around behind their backs all of the time.

What's more, the grounding that she and Saoirse would have had to endure was lifted right away! As a result of their electronic and mobile freedom, a long-awaited video was uploaded to WeTube roughly a week later. Thanks to its catchy title, it sported nearly a million views within the first 24 hours since it was made public.

The video opened with a nearly pitch-black screen broken up only by green-lit night vision directed at a grove of trees some ten yards away. Saoirse, decked out in a pastel hijab and modest attire, popped into the camera's field of view and waved with her left hand; the right was in its sling, as it would be for multiple weeks.

"Hey, everyone! Welcome to a very special video for this channel. Now, I know the news channels are all over covering the ghosts that attack Bailey Lake pretty regularly, but here's what they don't know: I've received a tip that there's something  _big_  in the woods. Maybe it's a clue about where these ghosts are coming from? Maybe we'll finally learn the origins of Relle Phantom, our city's undead protector? Who knows!"

She reached for the camera then, removing it from its tripod, and pointed it back at the trees. "That's what I'm here to do tonight. I don't know what's going to happen in there, but if you find this footage, now you'll know what I was doing. Let's go!"

The clip cut to another, and Saoirse was fully in the woods. Her footsteps in their sturdy boots snapped fallen twigs and crushed detritus noisily, seeming to echo through the night. The footage picked up her breathing, even and calm for the time being. "Okay, I've been walking for a little while. Got my flashlight, got my compass, got my directions for the tip. Battery's good... Will keep you posted."

Another jump forward, and the shot panned across the midnight-soaked forest. The trees' light-colored bark shined with the night vision filter, making pillars of bright patches that were only contrasted all the more by the limitless darkness in between. "Huh... I thought I was walking north, but now it's saying that's west..." Saoirse commented under her breath. The camera shook like it was changing hands so she could check her directions. One corner of the footage seemed to glitch for a split second, but it was gone as soon as it had happened.

"I—wait. Guys, I think I  _smell_  something." Saoirse piped up after another cut forward. The trees around her were more densely packed and carried a very foreboding aura, as if not even night vision would reveal the secrets twisted into their knotted roots and branches. Her flashlight, a too-bright beam in the darkness, flashed across the scene and drifted up to a low-hanging tree branch. "Look at that! It's  _smoldering_."

She reached a cautious hand up and drew back before coming into contact with the charred segment. "Yeah, it's still warm. Do you think... maybe Relle was just here? Or another ghost, I dunno. Let's keep going—I think I'm on to something here."

The video then droned on for almost thirty seconds of walking in a straight line before darting back up to look at the branches of a tree. "Wait—is that the same branch as before?" Saoirse gasped in a low whisper.

Suddenly, the sound of a huge branch snapping in half echoed like a gunshot through the night air, and the camera lurched before righting itself in her hands. " _What was that?_ " she whispered, her breathing fast and frantic.

" **You shouldn't have come here** ," an ominous yet distinctly feminine voice growled from somewhere so close by that the camera's microphone could barely handle it.

"Who  _are_  you?" Saoirse asked, her voice halting with terror.

" **Get out!** "

Then she took off! The footage was incredibly shaky, jumping up and down as she ran as fast as her legs could carry her through the dense forest. Heavy breathing and a panicked "I think she's after me!" were the only things the viewers could hear. A thick haze fell into the frame, blurring the defined lines of the trees and highlighting an indistinct glow that came into being as Saoirse panned over the clearing she found herself in. "Oh, no—it's so  _smoky_  all of a sudden!" She coughed a couple of times and readjusted her grip on the camera.

" **Wrong way** ," that same voice intoned again, this time from a little farther away. A vaguely humanoid shape condensed into being out of the smoke, and Saoirse shakily focused the frame on that. It raised one arm to the side slowly, holding its pose when it was parallel with the forest floor.

" **Your mistake**."

A bright light flashed outward from the smoky person's palm and completely turned the camera's screen white. The last things it picked up before the footage cut off abruptly were two very distinct sounds: another shallow gasp, and the crackling of a raging forest fire.

Then... nothing.

Just before everyone watching could start to get antsy about the lack of content following that vaguely threatening ending, a wall covered by a pale pink sheet appeared and two heads rose up from crouched positions on the floor of a well-lit room. It was HijabiHilighters' studio!

"Hey, guys!" Saoirse cheerfully chirped. "Guess whaaat~?"

"What's that?" her special guest with blue hair asked her with comical exaggeration.

"I got to collaborate with  _the_  Relle Phantom for this video!" Saoirse exclaimed, and both beaming girls threw their hands up in the air. " _Woohoo!_  And don't worry, I swear this was  _all_  my idea, completely. We aren't trying to say anything negative about ghosts. Relle, thank you  _so much_  for helping me spoof  _The Blair Witch Project_."

"Hey, that was super fun!" Relle answered. "Thanks for having me on your channel, Saoirse."

"Aww, thank  _you_  for coming!" They hugged, cheeks pressed together, and pulled apart. "Do you wanna help me do the outro, Relle?"

" _Absolutely_ ," Relle Phantom said. "Let's hope I get it right, right?"

"Oh, you'll be fine," Saoirse assured her, accompanied by a flippant wave of her left hand.

"Okay, so, thanks for watching us walk around the woods at night, and be sure to click on the subscribe button down there so you can, uh, keep watching HijabiHilighter's stuff!" Relle pretended to be awkward as she pointed downward to signify the direction of the button and turned to look at Saoirse for confirmation. She nodded and grinned.

"Yep! We also did a  _second_  video of just goofing off, behind the scenes for this video, and some spoofs of popular vines!" Saoirse pointed to the viewer's right, where a box had appeared with a clickable link on the screen. "Be sure to check that out, too, if you want to see us being huge dorks and having a good time."

In unison, they waved to the audience and called out, "Thank you so much for watching, my hilighters, and don't forget to keep an eye on your own rays of sunshine!"

The video then faded into catchy music with links to social media accounts and other videos, including the aforementioned blooper and goofing off post. That, too, had a view count reaching into the millions within a short span of time. It opened with Relle and Saoirse standing in front of the camera but looking a little to the side, with Relle frowning ever so slightly.

"I so pale..." she drawled in a phony accent, and Saoirse used her sling to gently nudge the ghost's arm.  
"The camera's rolling," she murmured, at which point Relle snapped up and looked right at it.   
"And in today's ghost fight against—" she started to say like a newscaster only for the six seconds to end and be replaced with the usual HijabiHilighter intro music and brightly-colored card.

"Boo!" Relle Phantom exclaimed, her face filling the screen and grinning from ear to ear. Thanks to that hazy white aura around her, the video's color saturation was altered in an interesting way. "Haha! These things are so cool! I love how technology has progressed, y'know? What did you call what we're doing right now, HijabiHilighter?"

"It's called a vlog," Saoirse answered from behind the camera. "A video-log. Are you ready to start, Relle?"  
"You know I am," she answered, pulling back and giving the cameragirl double finger guns for good measure. Now that she didn't take up the entire shot, it became clear that it was dusk and they were next to the forest where they would be filming the Blair Witch spoof. "What do we do first?"

Her question went unanswered and instead cut to a different setting, this one at Saoirse's makeshift studio. Relle said softly, "I  _am_  old..." to which Dude, offscreen, asked, "How old are you?"   
She put her hands on her hips sassily and replied, "Sixteen! I'm a  _grand_ mother!"

Then he was in view and gestured sharply to Relle's feet while shouting, " _What are thooose?_ "   
Relle pursed her lips, pretending to be unamused, and said dully, "They are my  _boots_."

"Honey~?" Relle called out after the scene changed over again, and from down a long hallway Saoirse's voice answered.   
"What~?"  
"Where's my super suit?" Relle asked.  
" _Whaaat~?_ "   
"Where. Is. My. Super suit?"

Then they were outside, and a fake tombstone was surrounded by smoke in the grass. A patch of overturned dirt lay in front of it. The ominous beginning of "Thriller" was playing, and right at the moment where the keyboard melody started to play, Relle's bewildered head popped out of the ground and looked around suspiciously.

Back inside the studio, half of a dozen framed pictures stood in a cluster, each one bearing the candid image of one of Relle's enemies. The camera panned over them all before finding Relle, who then gestured to them and said, "Look at all those chickens!"

Somehow, Camry had the camera and was vlogging as she walked down the street. "Yeah, so this city is, like,  _haunted?_  Apparently this girl died here when she was, like, nine or something."  
Offscreen, Relle spoke up in a peevish tone, "I'm  _sixteen_ , so shut the hell up."

"Saoirse, is that a  _ghost?_ " Dude yelled, pointing at Relle and Saoirse standing next to each other.  
"Yeah, this is—" Saoirse started to say before he cut her off.  
"I'm calling the Ghostbusters!" Then he was in front of a microwave and punching in the fictional phone number. The vine ended with a zoom in on Saoirse and Relle's confused faces as the Ghostbusters' theme started to play from out of nowhere.

"Okay, so you want me to stand over here and do what, exactly?" Relle was asking Saoirse as she tried to find a good place to film from. It was pitch dark outside, signaling that they were still shooting the spoof video in the woods.   
"Just, like, make a bright light after you put your arm out to the side," Saoirse directed. The camera angle shifted and showed Saoirse pantomiming what she meant. "We'll make sure to edit in a white-out of the screen when we're done."

"If you are here, speak to us," Saoirse was saying reverently, holding out a voice recorder to thin air inside her makeshift studio. All of a sudden, Relle, wearing a white sheet over her head, appeared next to the recorder and leaned in close.  
"Just a city boy!" she started to 'sing' at the top of her lungs. "Born and raised in South—!"

~~

It took about four days of intensive care via magic potions, spells, and cleansing rituals to safely bring Endellion back from his up close and personal encounter with Shasta. Her ghostly nature had done quite a number on his respiratory system, and even after being declared out of real danger from his wounds, he still wheezed with every breath and needed to take an inhalant every hour on the hour. Fan Liu and Allie worked together around the clock until they were sure the third member of their tiny coven wouldn't succumb to ghostly contamination right before their eyes.

As per the usual, no one batted an eyelash at his absence from school—not even one teacher took notice, which was just how the witch community liked it. There were countless spells in place to make sure no one could even suspect Kordelle of being a witch. By the time he was much better and back to his old self, his mind was made up.

"I can't... go back to that... school," he wheezed to Fan Liu. Their little family was seated in the dark living room, with Allie curled up next to her surrogate big brother and Fan Liu occupying her chair across from the couch. "Not for a while... at least."

Fan Liu pursed her lips for a moment, mulling it over carefully. "Well," she finally answered, "it  _was_  about time that you started to focus more on witchkind than your human life. Are you sure you're ready to let that go, though?"

He nodded, resolve etched in every line of his furrowed brow. "I am."

Unbeknownst to everyone except him, though, there was someone else in his mind who he thought needed to also let go of their human life.

~~

Summer was finally arriving, and as the days grew longer and the ants in everyone's pants became more frantic, serendipity decided to spring itself on an unsuspecting trio of friends. School was almost out for the year, and as long as there were no ghost attacks to fend off, the afternoons were more or less free of non-school obligations, leaving Camry, Saoirse, and Dude to do as they pleased.

On such a day, their backpacks were heavy with textbooks and responsibilities but their moods were lighter than air. "You guys wanna get ice cream? My treat," Cam suggested as they walked out of the school's double front doors.

"Perfect," Saoirse agreed, and Dude grinned wide.

"You sure you want to treat us? I could eat a cone like the ones you see in cartoons right now," he laughed.

"Within reason," Camry pretended to sigh with a mirthful tinge to her tone. "But I know how you feel. If it wouldn't melt too fast for me to eat, I would get myself one of those two-story cones, too."

"Oh,  _as if_  either of you could  _actually_  eat that much ice cream," Saoirse snorted, looking between the two of them skeptically. "I bet you wouldn't even be able to stomach the biggest size you can get at O'Creary's." Said ice cream joint was only a couple of blocks away from their high school, and their walking pace would bring them there shortly.

"Oh, it's  _on_  now," Camry whooped, punching a fist into the air for emphasis. "Ice cream eating contest!"

"Loser has to do  _one_  thing:  _anything_  the winner wants," Dude added, sharing a look with Camry that said he was not going to lose so easily.

"The stakes  _are_  high, but..." she tapered off, pretending to ponder the proposition. Then she whipped a hand out for Dude to grasp and shake. "Deal!"

At O'Creary's, Camry and Dude each picked out their favorite flavors to put in a quadruple-decker waffle cone while Saoirse ordered a simple two-scoop size in a dish. No one ate even a lick of the frozen treat until they were firmly seated at an outside table. Struggling to balance four scoops of ice cream, Dude and Camry pivoted to face each other. Both cones were raised in a mock handshake, and Saoirse fondly rolled her eyes at their showmanship.

"The winner has to fully chew and swallow the very tip of their cone or it doesn't count," Saoirse declared. "On your mark..."

"Good luck," Camry said, a spark of competition igniting in her eyes.

"Get set..."

"You, too," Dude replied, grinning behind his layered tower of chocolate brownie thunder and birthday cake.

"Go!"

Their focus was so intent that the attention their scarfing drew went completely unnoticed until their momentum started to fail them. Two and a half scoops ago, their bites were large and rich with gusto; now, they had to fight not to pause between each bite. " _Uuugh!_ " Camry groaned, throwing her head back for a second before chomping down on another chunk of cookie dough and chocolate-caramel.

"You're melting," Dude mumbled around a mouthful as he pointed to the tiny river carving a path over her knuckles.

"Your mom," was her mature, muffled answer to that before she tried to take a too-large bite and immediately regretted the brainfreeze that drove a spike through her head. Camry groaned and paused to let it pass; perhaps it didn't take all that long to do so because her volcanic core and ghost powers kept her warmer than most.

Both Dude and Camry reached the tops of their waffle cones in near-perfect synchronization, but that was where one of them found an unexpected lead and took it for all it was worth. While Dude still had to chew through chunks of brownie and still-cold ice cream, Camry discovered that most of the once-frozen treat inside the cone had entirely melted thanks to her unnaturally warm grip. She tipped her head back and drained it all down, making quick work of the cookie dough pieces and then moving on to decimating the waffle.

It was over in less than a minute from that point on. Dude squirmed in his seat with the effort to finish his dessert first, but there was no chance he could win the moment after she tossed the point of the cone into her mouth and crushed it between her teeth. Her palms smacked the picnic table decisively and she opened her mouth wide so Saoirse could see that she didn't have any remnants left. Saoirse called it like an umpire, throwing a hand out to the side and calling out, "Finished!"

" _Nooo!_ " Dude wailed around a full mouth, sounding muffled in defeat. He ate up the last of his own ice cream and slumped against the table. Camry followed shortly after a diluted victory dance that only helped her fully realize how bloated she felt from so much ice cream. Their heads on the table, they let out little moans of pain.

" _Bluuuuguh_..." Camry groaned, arms wrapped around her middle.

"You –  _buuurp_  – said it," Dude replied in a subdued tone. "Bluuuu- _guh_."

Saoirse rested her elbows on the tabletop, laced her fingers together, and adopted an amused expression as she supported her chin on her hands. "So, what're you going to make Dude do since you won, Cam?"

"Uhhh..." she mumbled numbly, lifting her head just enough to turn it to the left. A corkboard was posted on the side of O'Creary's, under an awning, and flyers were tacked to it, rattling in the gentle lake breeze. Her farsighted eyes fell on it and caught sight of two familiar words printed in bold, black letters against a neon pink background: DANCE COMPETITION.

"Ooh, what's that?" she wondered in a chirpy voice while prying herself out of the picnic bench seat and ambling over to get a closer look. Her eyes scanned the brightly colored page with growing enthusiasm, and before she was even finished reading she had ripped it off the board and was taking it back to her friends. "I know what we're gonna do!"

"'We?'" Dude echoed, lifting an unseen eyebrow while remaining facedown and too stuffed to move.

"Let me see," Saoirse said, reaching for the paper and accepting it when Camry handed it over. Her beautifully-painted lips moved ever so slightly as she read; Cam felt her heart flutter a little at the adorable sight. "Huh... A dance competition? Why that?"

"Hang on, what?" Now he was up, taking the flyer to read it for himself. "You want to enter me into a  _dance competition?_ "

"To enter  _us_  into a dance competition," Camry corrected him eagerly, her face bright with a wide smile flecked with traces of ice cream residue. "It's a couples thing! Any genre, any style—and I know the  _perfect_  one we could do, too."

Dude glanced between her and the flyer, taking time to process what was going on. "Y'know, I was expecting something more like eating something nasty or doing something kinda stupid. You know I'm not a dancer, right?"

"Sure I do," she said quickly, waving a flippant hand half a dozen times. Maybe her ghostly powers had helped her burn off her discomfort from the ice cream, and now she was running on a sugar rush. "But I can teach you the steps and we can make a routine and go and win the prize and be amazing!"

"Prize?" He looked back at the flyer and moved his thumb holding down the middle of the page. Underneath it was a little starburst graphic with the words "1K CASH PRIZE" inside. His black opal eyes glimmered at the sight. "Whoa..."

"See~?" Cam sang, knowing full well that she had caught his attention now. "I think it'd be really fun, too! Dancing is so much fun—I love to do it, and you've got so much energy that I bet we'd be unstoppable as a duo."

Saoirse leaned in then, a slightly pensive frown furrowing her brow. "Wouldn't it be hard to find time to make up this routine and practice it before the competition? It's only a couple of months away, and Dude has to learn everything from square one. Besides, you're really busy with  _other stuff_." The extra emphasis could only mean that she was talking about their extracurricular ghost-fighting commitment.

"Let's do it!" Dude announced, slamming the flyer down onto the table enthusiastically. Oh, no, now the boy with boundless energy was discovering his own sugar rush coursing through his blood. Saoirse could already feel herself regretting the decision to foster this bet.

"Yeah!" Camry cheered, throwing both fists into the air. The sharp motion made her wince as it pulled on her sore abdomen, and she slowly retracted her hands until she was curled up with her cheek on the table again. "Owww..."

"I guess we won't be starting until tomorrow, huh?" Dude asked with that knowing tone that said he was totally right.

"Oh,  _hell_  no," she answered emphatically.

~

The pair of friends were among the last to sign up for the competition, which eventually panned out in a way that placed them as one of the last pairs to perform on the night of the actual competition. This event was something that Camry had actually competed in before, though that had been when she was twelve and danced with a boy from Madame Descoteaux's dance studio. They hadn't done very well back then, partially because their chemistry had been low in quantity and neither had been dancing for exceptionally long at that point.

This time was going to be different. Camry could feel it in her core as a buzzing hum of excitement for adventure.

"We only get a few minutes for our performance, but we can have the lights crew help make the show a little more interesting if we have them work with us on it beforehand," Camry said after they had registered for the competition. The trio was seated on a low wall outside of the dance studio, poring over the materials they'd been given upon signing up. Dude frowned at some of the restrictions in his packet.

"No outside assistance from choreographers or instructors? Like, not even for pointers or advice?" he wondered aloud.

"I guess not, but that's okay," Cam said as she leaned over to look over his arm at the papers in his hands. "We won't need Madame Descoteaux's help when we're working together."

"You're still gonna have to teach him literally everything in only a few weeks," Saoirse reminded her sternly. "Is this really feasible?"

"Anything is feasible when you're in YOLO mode," Dude stated with all the confidence of a man who's been given the world on a silver platter. "And yes, I am  _super_  into YOLO mode right now."

"Then you really do want to do this with me?" Camry persisted cautiously, her ever-present resurfacing in her tone. "'Cause I wouldn't mind if you thought this is kinda over the top and decided not to go through with it..."

"Depends, I guess," was his reply that had her perk up a little bit. "What kind of dance are we gonna try and do?"

The grin that stretched across her face downright maniacal, showing teeth and a mischievous glint in her iolite eyes. "Swing dancing, of course."

~~

It took many, many weeks of brainstorming, practice, perfecting, and reworking to get their routine down in a way that felt right and natural to both of them. First, they chose the song and felt out a few special moves to go along with key points in the melody, then built off of those. The costumes were another matter entirely, but Saoirse's knowledge about fashion and performing became paramount to their success in finding the right style.

"So I, uh, found something at the fabric store," Saoirse began with the barely restrained excitement that betrayed an incoming surprise. "I think it would go really well with your costumes~"

"What, what?" Dude demanded to know, bouncing onto his feet with more grace than he had possessed two months ago. One of the spare rooms in the Dowell household had been renovated into a makeshift dance studio, with a few floor length mirrors leaned against one wall and the furniture cleared out for the time being. This was where they practiced their routine whenever they weren't at school, trudging through homework, or fighting off the undead.

"Show meee!" Camry begged, her palms clapped together in front of her nose.

Saoirse whipped her hands out from behind her back and revealed two small boxes in each hand. Each package said in colorful lettering, "PRIDE BRIGHTS" that matched the flag they were supposed to represent. One hand held small garlands of rainbow lights while the other boxes were blue, pink, and yellow. "We can sew these into your clothes and try to help you both stand out onstage."

" _OHHH!_ " both dancers exclaimed as they took their respective boxes and stared at them, entranced by the thought. A thought occurred to Dude a moment later, though, and some of his enthusiasm drifted away.

"Wait, then we'd have to have battery packs somewhere on us. Those are kinda heavy, aren't they? They might mess up our dancing."

"Oh," Camry hummed as she realized that he was right. "Uhm... Well... What if... we... didn't have battery packs?"

"Then the lights don't light up," Saoirse pointed out, squinting as she tried to see where her girlfriend was going with this train of thought.

"Maybe not, though," Camry replied slowly, feeling out her idea in the meantime. She pointed to Dude, then back at the boxes in his hands. "You could power them with your magic? If the wires all met up in the right spots, you could... generate a little bit of a current to make them light up, and... and if they get too hot, I can pull some of the heat out."

Saoirse and Dude exchanged a look. "Isn't that kind of like cheating?" Saoirse asked. "No one else in the competition is going to be able to do something like this."

"We could be careful," Dude relented half a moment later. "I've been practicing my energy control and getting a sense for how much I'm putting out."

"If we bunch up the wires somewhere discreet, I bet we could pull it off without being caught," Camry added, gaining momentum for the idea as he helped feed into it.

"That doesn't really change the fact that it's pretty much cheating," Saoirse grumbled, suddenly regretting picking up the lights in the first place. "You shouldn't risk having your secrets revealed just for the sake of convenience."

"Sure, but... let's just try it out on the outfits and see what happens. Just in case," Camry suggested. With Dude on board, more or less, Saoirse was outnumbered and decided it was better to drop the matter than try to parent the two of them.

~

Finally, the night of the competition was upon them. Their time slot was scheduled near the end of the program, at 8:50 pm, which would soon after shift gears so the judges would have time to make their decisions. Though it had involved countless, exhausting hours of work and dedication, both Dude and Camry felt confident in their routine and were more or less ready to go onstage for the audience.

"And to think that we're only here because I lost a bet," Dude pretended to sigh as he shook his head. They were waiting backstage with a few of the other teams milling about, talking in low voices while they anxiously waited to perform. "You doing okay, Cam? You're not nervous or anything?"

" _Nah_ , nah," she replied, though her somewhat clipped tone said otherwise. "This is my element, my  _zone_. I've been doing this since I was six years old! It's just... I'm worried that something might go wrong. Like, an unwanted visitor or... something."

Dude flashed her an easygoing smile. "Hey, you've got me here, right? They wouldn't dare try anything."

"Let's hope you're right," she said, wrapping her arms around herself while glancing out at the stage. The loud music had a lot of bass going on, and the pair dancing out there were really giving it their all to try and win the first place prize. Even so, Camry couldn't quite tell what genre their style was coming from, and she didn't want to waste the brainpower on figuring it out.

"Let's check the wires on more time," Dude suggested after a few moments of heavy silence between themselves. Camry wordlessly turned to put her back to him, and she felt the fabric of her dress shift a little bit above her lower back. Her skirts rustled, and Dude pulled back, satisfied that nothing had changed since the last time he'd checked. Then she did the same for him, checking the breast pocket of his smart-looking vest and making sure the wires were making contact with him. Lighting himself up was the easy part; it was doing the same to her that was the bigger half of the challenge.

"Y'know what? We've got  _nothing_  to worry about," she stated suddenly, playfully smacking his shoulder and standing tall—well, as tall as her five-foot-two could be. "We've got this routine  _down_. It's fun, it's witty, and it's original. It's  _us_. Are you ready for this?"

"You  _know_  I am," he said with a grin, swishing his green locks to the side and out of his face. "Let's crush it!"

" _Shhh_ ," a passing stagehand warned them, and they clammed up immediately. Oops, too loud.

Two more performances began and ended before the same stagehand brought the two of them to the edge of the stage to wait for their time to start. A quiet hubbub from the audience rose and fell before silencing altogether when the announcer for the event grabbed his mic and called out, "And now, ladies and gentlemen, a swing dance performance by Camry Dowell and Joaquín Hinojosa, featuring music by Caravan Palace."

The stage went entirely dark, betraying no presence of anyone at all. The audience was silent, waiting in mild anticipation for the show. Among the rows sat a group of parents and kids who were very eager to see specifically Camry and Dude perform; Sadie and Maria had their phones recording discreetly to capture the moment.

A spot light flicked on in the center of the stage, but no one was there. It turned off after two seconds, then flicked on again. A lone figure was now illuminated by the round circle of white light: he leaned with his elbow on thin air, completely at ease in his casual but classy navy blue vest and slacks. His white shirt under the vest was long-sleeved and collared, but the sleeves were folded up to his elbows for added effect. His black shoes gleamed under the spot light, but only for the two seconds it was on.

The light repeated this again, and this time Camry's shoulder was under his elbow. She pretended to examine her fingernails, with one arm crossed under her ribs and a knee casually bent. Her dress was down to her knees and white with black polka dots. Two thin lines of black wrapped around the top of the bodice, and two more hemmed the bottom of the skirt. A large black bow cinched it all at the waist, and her black heels were also polished to shine like Dude's shoes.

All of this happened even before the music itself began, but when Brotherswing started up she led the way by sashaying her hips to the slow beat the song opened with. Dude let up on her shoulder to let her spin out, and as she did the stage lights brightened to give them the whole stage. She danced around, letting her actions flow in time with the tempo, and beckoned for him to follow her lead. Dude stepped back and shook his head, arms out in front of him to convey his reluctance. Her response was to take him by the hand and use the first verse to pretend to teach him how to dance in swing. He played along just as they had practiced, letting his movements start out stiff but loosen a little over time.

The choruses were when they fell into sync rather than use an echoing sort of dance style that consisted of Camry teaching and Dude copying her. By the second chorus, he was basically doing just as well as she did with her fast footwork and spinning. Of course, the song built itself up before dipping into a lull straight after, and they drifted farther away from each other, still imbued with the urge to move with the beat but unsure of how to continue. The stage lights dimmed a little to mirror that emotion. A trill started, and they snapped up their heads to look at each other before darting toward centerstage.

Their timing was perfect! She leaped at him, reaching out to grab one hand and his upper arm, and his free hand found the small of her back. She kicked herself up as if to flip over, but they held the pose where he leaned over her and her leg was sticking straight out while the other was bent at the knee. The multicolored lights on their clothes flashed to life at the exact moment the music met the top of its crescendo, much to the loud gasping and excitement of the crowd. Giddy grins on their faces, Dude swung Camry gracefully back onto her feet, and with hands linked they twirled around each other, their feet flying underneath them.

The music was punctuated with louder bursts, which they mimicked with elongated spins by Camry and energetic kicks from Dude. The final crescendo was their grand finale, and even though their breathing was starting to become ragged, they were going to make the most of it. An invisible tile under Camry's foot gave her a slight leg up as she launched into the air with Dude's help, and she spun like a top before coming back down into his arms, a leg kicked out just as before. He set her down into a twirl that took her to one side of the stage while he rhythmically drifted in the opposite direction. The music then shifted into the same slow melody as the beginning, and they languidly walked offstage apart with Camry swinging her hips and Dude adjusting his sleeves all the while.

It was almost too difficult to hear the end of the song, though, because the audience's applause was so loud and roared up so suddenly that it almost drowned it out! As soon as they were out of sight, Camry wasted no time in running to the other side from behind the curtained backdrop and launched into Dude's arms, laughing loud and with too much delight to be contained. He jumped around with her, too jazzed from the rush to coherently form real words.

"That was amazing!" Camry exclaimed, sliding back to the ground and clinging onto his shoulders. "Dude, you were  _incredible!_  I can't believe how well that went—I never get this much natural coordination, even with other dancers!"

"You—that—I gotta—sit down," Dude gasped, his voice sounding the way it would after running a marathon. Sweaty, exhausted, buzzing with a kind of energy either teen really ever felt, they found a couple of folding chairs and moved them side by side to catch their breath. A different stagehand from the one before handed them each a bottle of water, which they gulped down ravenously.

"Holy—that was such a  _rush_ ," Dude said after he had caught some of his breath back. "I'm glad I didn't drop you."

"I'm glad I didn't step on you with my heels," Camry tacked on with a cheeky grin.

~

Announcing the awards passed by in a blur. Dude remembered feeling his heart race as he and Camry held onto each other for good luck and mutual support. Then they were rushing out of the crowd of competitors, definitely exhilarated beyond belief. His breath was light and airy, rapidly moving in and out of his chest like a rabbit, even as he embraced his family and showed them the prize that Camry had been insistent on him keeping.

Now, his rabbit-like breath was back for a very different reason. His heart raced once more, but this time the adrenaline coursing through his weary veins was turning his stomach sour with the tinges of fear and dread. He stood on the sidewalk outside of the competition venue, flanked on both sides by glowing blue trees that threw shadows across the face of he who stood before him. Somewhere inside, his mother and sister were with the Dowells and Mahadeos, still going on about the wonderful dance they had just witnessed.

Kordelle was unmistakable with his height and lanky gait. The usual charm jingled in his ponytail, but even that pleasant sound had taken on a more sinister tune. "Dude, you used magic in your routine."

"We weren't caught—" he started to say in his defense, but Kordelle held his hand out show an open flip phone in his palm.

"Never mind that. Listen, I've been doing some thinking, and after what I saw in your performance, I'm sure of it now."

Dude took a menacing step forward and stabbed an index finger at the taller boy. "If you think I'm letting you get anywhere near her again, you're  _dead wrong_."

"No, no. Let me explain." Kordelle waved that thought away with his free hand. "Dude, that ghost has its hooks far deeper in you than I could have ever predicted. You won't be able to reach your full potential while you're letting it hold you back like this. I need you to trust me on this."

"You know, your track record of trust is pretty questionable," Dude reminded him, his gaze stony and unyielding. "And you don't know what you're talking about."

"If you won't believe me, then believe someone who definitely knows what he's talking about," Kordelle said, holding out the phone with more emphasis this time.

Dude wavered a little, his curiosity itching to take the phone but his distrust of Kordelle holding him back. What if the phone was a trap? It could be laced with a curse, or it could have a spell that would get inside his head, or—Oh, forget it.

The phone was up to his ear before he could talk himself out of doing it. "Hello?" he said, shooting Kordelle a glaring eye roll without letting it affect his tone.

"Hola, hijo," a stentorian voice, definitely masculine and authoritative, said over the speaker. "You probably don't remember me, but I'm your father."

The world could have stopped spinning on its axis in that instant and Dude wouldn't have noticed at all. Was it just him, or was the ground starting to slope to the side right under his feet? "What—?" he whispered, gripping the tiny phone with two shaking hands. His body language contracted into himself, and he turned a little to the side to take Kordelle out of his main field of vision.

"My name is Ricardo, too—or did your mother change that after she took you from me?" the man on the other end of the phone wondered. "I've been anxious to finally meet you, hijo."

"N...  ** _NO!_** " Dude bellowed, taking the phone and spiking it into the concrete sidewalk. It shattered into hundreds of pieces with circuitry and shards of plastic radiating out in all directions. His breath came to him in ragged bursts, leaving spots to swim in front of his eyes.

When he whirled back around to stare Kordelle down, his black opal eyes had the sensation of a trapped, feral animal. " ** _You_** —What the  _fuck_  did you just  _do?_ "

"You'll thank me for this later, Dude. He's not really as bad as I first thought he was," Kordelle said, his voice resigned and self-assured. He took a step back and to the left, vanishing behind a glowing tree before Dude could give into his urge to take a swing at Kordelle's nose.

That was how Camry and Saoirse found their friend a moment later: muscles tense, breathing sporadic, and with a cold sweat sparkling on his forehead. "Hey, there you are. You disappeared for a minute there, and we—Dude?" Saoirse started to say, but when they came into the glow of the tree's aura they were able to see that something was amiss.

"I... Wh—Why do I smell a-a-asphodel?" Camry stuttered, a raspy veil of panic swathing her words. She started to shake as her eyes darted in all directions, including up and down.

"He... He told him where we are," Dude croaked out as he turned to face his two best friends.

"Who?" Saoirse pressed, keeping an arm around Camry's waist to help her stay grounded as she panicked. Her recovery process, though commonplace to the three of them by that point, occasionally involved an episode of a PTSD-like break from reality complete with flashbacks and a panic attack.

"My... dad," he said, and with a complete 180 from numbness to aggressive animation, he grabbed the sides of his head and yelled, " _He knows where we are!_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, do you guys hate me yet? All two of you who have been keeping up with this story? *nudge nudge*
> 
> Please leave a comment down below and a vote if you liked this story, and know that I always appreciate hearing from you wonderful readers! Have a great school year and study hard!
> 
> -Alex (BookBird1497)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Superstition Spectrum by BookBird1497 - Prologue [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9415985) by [Ephirae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ephirae/pseuds/Ephirae)




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